I can start this week's post with a quote from the book I've just read for my book review assignment. It's from the book Revolution in the Valley, which tells the story of the Macintosh. As part of the launch campaign, they wanted to get a cover story in one of the top US magazines. Andy Hertzfeld, the author, puts it this way: "Regis [McKenna, the marketing guru] and his team were experts at the delicate dance of courtship that such an endeavor required..."
Some people may not agree with Neff's views of the network in the case of the media. But I must admit that I believe that's a fairly accurate description of how things happen. In the above story, it happened that this 'courtship' with leaked to the local press, and a certain newspaper published it in their social columns, which led the executives at Newsweek to cancel the cover, although the story was published all the same.
Likewise, the 'sensationalist' media relies on solid but hidden networks of friends and relatives of celebrities do get firsthand information about their private lives, which often times turn out to be true. This is not obtained by calling such people and asking them questions, but by a espionage work that goes far beyond the borders of journalistic activity itself.
Neff's idea (quoting Kotkin) of a "cultural industrial complex" seems to be even more truthful when applied to a genre of labor that requires a lot of individual and collective creativeness. Much like learning web design requires 90% of browsing other people's websites and 10% of learning HTML and other design techniques, the existence of such complex may prove itself far more useful to those who depend on the theories and standards generated by that group than any other tool their work may require.
Sorry, I should have posted some questions, I'll think further so I can elaborate a few of them.
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