100 Years Ago, First Commercial Radio Broadcast Announced Election Results

Today, social media have helped to further transform political discourse from reasoned argument to attention-grabbing images and memes. Politicians, who now compete with hundreds of other media channels and outlets, need to capture voters’ attention, and they increasingly turn to ridicule and even outrage to do so.

Some might regard modern politics as fulfilling a McLuhan prophecy: “The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be so much more powerful than he will ever be.”

Democratic societies neglect the effects of new forms of media on the quality of political discourse at their own peril.

Government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” – as Lincoln put it – can thrive only when voters are informed by a truly robust exchange of ideas.The Conversation

[consortiumnews.com]

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