Raindance's Media Primers reflect the group's iconoclastic theories of television and video, and their engagement with alternative and mass media, pop culture and the counter-culture. The themes addressed - media manipulation, the camera's role in modifying individual behavior - illustrate their experiments with the technological and conceptual underpinnings of 1/2-inch portable video.

Merging alternative video and mass media, Ira Schneider's Media Primer juxtaposes cultural indicators, including television commercials, news footage, and Portapak documentation of countercultural events such as the Altamount rock concert.