We're starting out today with a segment about "Generation-Like," the media term media theorist Douglas Rushkoff uses for the generation of Millennials who live huge chunks of their lives on social media where they subsist on a form of metered approval.
In the new PBS FRONTLINE documentary which airs tonight on CPTV, Rushkoff looks at the way commercial enterprises have found ways to convert those young people and their activities into the marketing equivalent of what Wall Street started calling derivatives. I other words, "likes" can be purchased and bundled and sold. Of course, in 2008, we discovered that many of those bundles were not worth what the buyers thought they were worth.
Anyway, expect a lively discussion of the current digital moment and that should blend nicely into the next segment about Jimmy Fallon, they guy who is supposed to bridge the gap between the old media and this generation.
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GUESTS:
- Douglas Rushkoff is the author of several books including his most recent, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. He's also made several documentaries for television including “Generation Like,” the latest "Frontline" report.
- Alessandra Stanley is a journalist and the television critic for The New York Times
- Ben Geman is the energy and environment correspondent for The National Journal
