STATEMENT
In his 1961 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America, theorist Daniel Boorstin proposed that the average American regards the media's simulation or representation of an event as more “real” then the event itself:

“Until recently we have been justified in believing Abraham Lincoln's familiar maxim: ‘You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.' This has been the foundation-belief of American democracy. Lincoln's appealing slogan rests on two elementary assumptions. First, that there is a clear and visible distinction between sham and reality, between the lies a demagogue would have us believe and the truths which are there all the time. Second, that the people tend to prefer reality to sham, that if offered a choice between a simple truth and a contrived image, they will prefer the truth.

Neither of these any longer fits the facts. Not because people are less intelligent or more dishonest. Rather because great unforeseen changes--the great forward strides of American civilization--have blurred the edges of reality. The pseudo-events which flood our consciousness are neither true nor false in the old familiar senses. The very same advances which have made them possible have also made the images--however planned, contrived, or sorted--more vivid, more attractive, more impressive, and more persuasive than reality itself.”