We stopped in one of the villages along the coast, in a place that would be called a sports bar in the U.S. It had dark wood paneling, the requisite beer advertisement signs, and flags of various nations as part of the decor.

A woman in our group directed our attention to one of the TVs. The South African rugby team was about to play and the team members were singing the national anthem. There are now two anthems -- the African version, N'kosi Sikelele Africa (God Bless Africa), and the English version.

We all watched the camera pan slowly across a line of black and white athletes, arm over shoulder, singing N'kosi Sikelele. Even though it was a classic mediated moment -- a scene out of a Coca-Cola commercial -- masterminded by an advertising agency creative team, I was moved by it. I can't tell if I have been trained to be moved, like Pavlov's dog, by clever creative directors who reduce real human contact to a selling point -- or if I was moved in spite of the similarity to orchestrated pathos.

How can we identity authentic moments anymore when we have seen so many artificial ones?

...