Being There

As the 8 year Chauncey Gardner administration winds down, Western Culture -the United States, at least -finds itself fostering a new way of "experiencing" by younger generations.

We're working on a project with the publisher of some terrific guide books to U. S. National Parks.

He tells us of a study in which teens click through websites about National Parks. When asked if they "liked" the parks, most said yes. When asked if the would like to visit, most said "no". The reason -they had already been there (on the computer).

The culture of watching, born in the late 19th Century, has matured. Watching is experiencing.

There were a number of reports last year about the popularity of pornography amongst teens (boys and girls- who doesn't "like to watch"?). Many teens in a particular study were uninterested in "actual" sex. The men and women they experienced online were better.

The first step in a Post-McLuhan era.

The viewer is no longer the creator of mass entertainment. Mass entertainment will be personalized.

Instead of the media resulting in a shared common experience, experience will be the result of access to media.