> I can’t identify one monolithic hyper-normative “correct” credo in mass media. Not monolithic but compressed. And not in actuality but in expectation. > I

> I can’t identify one monolithic hyper-normative “correct” credo in mass media. Not monolithic but compressed. And not in actuality but in expectation. > In my lifetime I have seen the variety of speech (US based tho I understand it is a global change) conveyed thru mass media explode in variety. Yes! 60 years ago you had one job for life and dressed accordingly. Today you've been a Punk who works at Tesco, an Emo in IT, a Greaser in sales and a management suit by the time you're 25. The acceptable expectation is that you "advance". Restive variety of expression is de rigueur. > From three TV stations and the newspaper to hundreds of channels, espousing everything from Yoga... I disagree here. While the manifest variety of (mainly user generated) content has enriched, late capitalism has compressed meaningful choice via consolidation. There were 60 newspapers only couple of decades ago, scores of media companies... now we talk about the Big Five (or is it the Big Three now?) > People write a lot about how they can’t express their beliefs anymore, but you can be a flat earther and be on YouTube and have conventions. Indeed, that's part of the paradox around expectation. Writing about being oppressed by the man is normative. A "flat earther" could even work for NASA doing orbital calculations, and nobody would bat an eyelid, provided they did "flat earth stuff" in a respectable, acceptable way. What is allowed and what is "expected" (and most cruelly expected of/by ourselves) are different things.