“In the age of pseudo‑events it is less the artificial simplification than the artificial complication of experience that confuses us. Whenever in the public mind a pseudo‑event competes for attention with a spontaneous event in the same field, the pseudo‑event will tend to dominate. What happens on television will overshadow what happens off television.”

— Daniel J. Boorstin

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 39.

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Daniel J. Boorstin 39

American historian 1914–2004

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