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November 09, 2004
The Persuaders
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Check out PBS tonight for an intriguing new documentary by Doug Rushkoff called The Persuaders
I met Doug Rushkoff through contacts in the San Francisco rave community back in the early '90s and had the opportunity to invite him to write a regular column for a short-lived publication I conceived and edited, Blaster, the first lifestyle magazine for "screenagers" (people who grow up using a computer mouse and videogame joystick). He went on to New York University, fame and glory, and is back with the new PBS documentary
From the PBS description of the program:
FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar "persuasion industries" of advertising and public relations and how marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives. Through sophisticated market research methods to better understand consumers, and by turning to the little-understood techniques of public relations to make sure their messages come from sources we trust, marketers are crafting messages that resonate with an increasingly cynical public. In this documentary essay, correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (correspondent for FRONTLINE's "The Merchants of Cool") also explores how the culture of marketing has come to shape the way Americans understand the world and themselves and how the techniques of the persuasion industries have migrated to politics, shaping the way our leaders formulate policy, influence public opinion, make decisions, and stay in power.
Rushkoff's subject reminds me of Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, a 1957 book that had a big impact on me when I discovered it as a budding malcontent in the 1960s.
Considering the way that Bush and the Christian Right have hypnotized tens of millions of Americans, Rushkoff's documentary sounds like required viewing.
Links:
The Persuaders, PBS site for the documentary
Rushkoff.com Doug Rushkoff's site. Here's his blog.
The Hidden Persuader, Salon.com essay on Packard's book and career.
Vance Packard–Pop Sociologist of Marketing Scams and Much More brief overview of Packard's career.
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison "on a need-to-know basis"
November 9, 2004 09:58 AM
