The Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) investigative show Frontline will air a deep look into how digital media and the Internet have transformed human lives and the subject of videogames is featured heavily in the program.
Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier will debut on February 2 at 9:00 ET. The 90 minute show was produced by Rachel Dretzin, who also created the recent Frontline special Growing Up Online, and will feature commentary from Douglas Rushkoff. Segments include Living Faster, Relationships, Waging War, Virtual Worlds and Learning.
Many individual videos are already available for viewing on the PBS website and a trailer for the show offers a quick overview of what it’s all about.
The Waging War section features game-related topics such as the military’s use of virtual reality training, as well as looks at both America’s Army and the Army Experience Center.
Virtual Worlds contains a cornucopia of videogame segments, including the use of virtual reality therapy for veterans, gaming addiction, professional gamers, violent games, Second Life and about 20 more pieces.
Another cool aspect to the program is that the Digital Nation website launched about a year ago ago in a bid to let users collaborate with the project by sharing their own experiences.
Tonight's Penn & Teller: Bullshit! is the much-anticipated episode on video game violence.
The program airs at 10:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific on Showtime. From the P&T:BS! website:
In episode 703, the duo debunks the theory of politicians and other alarmists that playing video games leads to teen violence by handing over a real semiautomatic weapon to a nine-year-old video game player to see if he becomes a human killing machine.
The promo video at left features a guy who is apparently an anti-game violence campaigner named Chris Cooney. I'll 'fess up that - in nearly five years of editing GamePolitics - I can't remember hearing of the guy, so I'm curious to see what he's all about. This is also the episode in which disbarred attorney Jack Thompson makes an appearance.
If you miss tonight's show, the program will be repeated several times over the next few days.
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