AND a product of the way that the hollowing-out of local newspapers has changed the ratio of reported news to opinion pieces. (Present company very much excepted.)
Yes! A new form of political power began to form with mass media (e.g. Hearst) and has metastasized with social media when anyone can build a platform of support, especially by sowing controversy and fostering grievance. I wonder how our system can adapt to this reality, or even if it can.
I’m reading Barbara Walter’s book ‘How Civil Wars Start’ and she talks about how the different times social media saturated different countries is basically a natural experiment showing how it messes up democracies.
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