Brooke Gladstone’s talk focused on the construction of media in our lives. While she mentioned that she had a different opening to her speech, I think it was fitting that she opened with a brief study of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. She questioned how reliable the information we receive is and challenged us to question ourselves about where we seek out our information.
In one part of the talk, she printed tweets from Twitter that had gone viral about missing family members, which were all in fact hoaxes and were spreading false information. She also dissected TV news and radio news stories that imply they have not yet received confirmation on what’s going on, which essentially means they aren’t sure what’s happening. Gladstone’s talk overlapped with Kirsten Johnson’s film screening, as they both explored the ways in which stories are constructed and how we, as the creators, are responsible for creating and “construing it in the best way we can”.