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Modern democracies are always an interplay between mass media and electorate. The schema is roughly circular: people in power => media => voters => people in p
by Udik 9y ago
Modern democracies are always an interplay between mass media and electorate. The schema is roughly circular:
people in power => media => voters => people in power
The Facebook problem (and more generally the Internet problem) is that it vastly reduces the control that people in power have over the information consumed by the voters. Which could be a good thing in some cases, a very bad thing in others, as the powerful are usually also a highly educated elite that is capable of steering public opinion towards better choices.
However, I also agree with others when they say that blaming Facebook for Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving way of dealing with the problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated electorate. And the risk now is that a global, pervasive censorship will be applied by Internet giants to please the powerful elites of their home country.
- Clubber 9y ago>that blaming Facebook for Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving way of dealing with the problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated electorate. I'm not sure poorly educated is the right term, but they are definitely poor financially across the vast majority of the US. I hesitate to say poorly educated because wading through the bullshit of politics isn't taught in high school and it takes years of getting burned before you realize just how much bullshit there is. I mean when you want to learn about something, you go to a source or two and learn about it. With politics, your source is the news, and there are really no consistent good sources that are consistent over decades. Also, the nature of politics is highly subjective.
- Udik 9y ago> I hesitate to say poorly educated because wading through the bullshit of politics isn't taught in high school and it takes years of getting burned before you realize just how much bullshit there is. I didn't mean "poorly educated" in a derogatory way. Poor education can be the result of many factors, among which individual choice is probably the least relevant. The quality of education is influenced by family wealth, and on a bigger scale by political choices and a certain cultural attitude (I have long had the intuitive idea, which might be completely wrong, that USA's cult of freedom entails a rejection of the value of a common basic educational standard).