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From my short pre-Web memory, I feel there was a "brief" (several decades) period when a small number of regulated (and after regulation ended, acculturated) ne
by azernik 5y ago
From my short pre-Web memory, I feel there was a "brief" (several decades) period when a small number of regulated (and after regulation ended, acculturated) neutral TV news channels provided a baseline common narrative. That was already eroding in the '90s, as the massive expansion of available channels through both cable and better over-the-air encoding created a similar publishing boom. Both cable and talk radio in the '90s-'00s presaged the greater impact the web and social media would have.
- nixpulvis 5y agoI too have that feeling, but it still feels somewhat misguided... I can't quite place why. Perhaps I'm just being too pessimistic, that things could in fact be better again. I wonder... Many common narratives are themselves hoxes or scams. Many regulations exist to simply protect the scammers. So I'm not quite sure I agree with your implication. I do however agree that culture was more uniform which could cause the illusion of being taken for a ride a bit more appealing. As for today, I'm amazed at how few people I know even half as pissed off as I am, so maybe they're all still happily on the ferris wheel too?
- azernik 5y agoThe common-denominator media didn't put a stop to disinformation and scams, but it did provide some limits to how completely they could alter your worldview. Information contradicting the mainstream media (which was a realer institution then than it is now) had to be quite convincing to take hold.