A test balloon for the media society

In the past weeks hundreds of international media broadcast live coverage of a silver helium balloon after a couple from the US state of Colorado claimed their son was riding in it. This turned out to be a lie. The liberal daiy La Vanguardia comments: "Let's summarise: last Thursday evening the world's attention was focused on the fraudulent fantasy of a self-appointed son of extraterrestrials who wanted to generate publicity for his planned reality show on UFOs - at the expense of collective sentimentalism. Nowadays we dedicate part of our leisure time to this kind of scam. … But the case of the helium balloon also highlights a perverse aspect of our society as a whole: at the beginning of the 21st century we watch reality shows that are pure fiction with the same avidness and ignorance with which our ancestors of the 19th century visited funfairs and believed in the most fantastic legends."

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