An Academic Among the Trade and Culture of the CES

I’ve wanted to go to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for quite some time. Since the show is the first part of the year, it was difficult to travel to Las Vegas. I’m generally at the National Association of Broadcasters annual show in April, and my travel budget doesn’t cover going to Vegas twice in one year. I was thankful to see several people cover CES from the inside out. For example, Stacie Krajchir described how a group of UNLV students from several different fields were given a tour of the floor and were made deputy reporters covering the show. As somebody who has tried to include a conference as a reporter and a novice to the field, I can tell you it’s tough. I would be very curious to see what would happen if the students were all graduate students, as opposed to undergrad, and see how the reporting would be different. My best guess would deal less with the actual tech and hardware and more about the culture behind the show. The tech reported from many of these shows seem to be nothing more than glorified press releases and instructional video talking about the product. I would be more interested in seeing more of the personalities and how those people interact with these new products.