'Ganda Bash

Here's a cutie: Your Consumer is Revolting. With a serious subtitle: The History of Rumor Control in American Marketing. "American corporations and government entities have long attempted to monitor, control and influence word-of-mouth communication in order to align it with their own interests." The marketing exec who "led all communication research for Procter & Gamble," per the press release, "will survey the development of rumor control, as the process is known, and the marketing industry's recent response to mass adoption of the Internet."

There's plenty more: Why You Can Trust Comment and Opinion More Than News, also Corporations in the Classroom, and an advance screening of clips from a 10-hour PBS documentary, "Carrier," about life on the USS Nimitz during a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf.

The conference, moderated by David Brancaccio, is being presented by the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in collaboration with the PhD Programs in History and Sociology of the Graduate Center, CUNY. It begins Friday (Feb. 15) at 9 a.m. and runs through 4 p.m. Place: 365 Fifth Ave. (btwn 34th & 35th Streets), in the Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall, GC CUNY. $35 (general admission); $20 (students). Tel: 212.592.2200.