Thus it always was. Back in the day in America there were a few big newspapers (basically, USA Today plus a couple of local city or state papers) and three TV c

Thus it always was. Back in the day in America there were a few big newspapers (basically, USA Today plus a couple of local city or state papers) and three TV channels. They all broadly agreed on what was important and how to present it. That was "the news", and it shaped how people saw the world. If you were so inclined you could find some alternative points of view in the right newsagents, but mainstream mass-media generally represented a single perspective, and that was the filter through which most people saw the world. People back then complained that the "Republocrats" were a cosy duopoly. There was no culture war because a large majority of Americans were part of a single culture. (As long as you were white, of course. If you were anything else then nobody cared what you thought).