Elizabeth Joe: While creating your net project what/who are your influences? Do your ideas emerge from a group or from someone specific that you’ve studied/analyzed?

Nanette Wylde: I respond to the cultural environment around me. With “The Daily Planet Interactive” I am thinking very specifically about information technologies, control of and access to information, the fact that in the U.S.A there are about six primary media conglomerates, and that media is used to manipulate the masses. I am also interested in the trend to invite audience participation in a variety of formats. I am interested that in the U.S. there is an upsurge of ‘reality’ TV programming. I am interested in the interstice of what people really feel is important, what they believe is important, and what they are ‘told’ is important. I am interested in the notions of celebrity, sensation, and historical repetition.

EJ: Where is the history of this censorship coming from – your idea of blocking information using XXX’s?

NW: I don't think I am blocking information. I think I am playing with information and contemporary culture; and inviting the web audience to play with me. The headlines evoke a variety of possible narratives in the minds of the audience. When several headlines appear together in the newspaper they start a dialogue. It is these narratives and the relationships that develop between them that engage me. The xxx's are meant to clue the audience that narratives exist. If I gave stories with the headlines I would be removing much of the potential for the audience's imaginative and associative play.

EJ: What country and city do you currently reside in?

NW: Chico and Redwood City, California, U.S.A.

EJ: Do you feel your location plays a significant role with respect to the content of your web project?

NW: Perhaps. I commute back and forth between two Northern California towns. One is a rural, conservative, University town. The other is a working class, culturally diverse, suburban/industrial area of the South Bay Area of San Francisco. My primary news source in both of these towns is local National Public Radio. The information that is reported on the two stations are very different. My Secondary news source is small, local community newspapers. I am interested in both what is considered newsworthy, and how it is located in the structure of the news format. The two different towns, where I spend much of my time, process and spit out the ‘news’ very differently. I live in the U.S. where access to information technologies is relatively very high; and where ‘citizens’ have the illusion of free speech, democracy, and the right to know the ‘truth’.

EJ: What messages do you hope to instill in your viewers by compiling seemingly ‘news worthy’ information from, specifically, the radio (from two different towns) and from local community newspapers? Would appropriating headlines from large newspapers alter the impact/message of your web project?

NW: The NPR news isn't in "The Daily Planet Interactive" only the local community newspaper. I specifically worked from the local papers because I wanted the mix of local interests with the global report AND the local headlines are often very creative/unconventional. I also found that sometimes the headlines seem very different from the story content (on the local level). Perhaps headlines are written to lure, entice, entertain, and ultimately sell the paper.