[davidjay]

A few years ago we, naively, thought that the growth of the internet and social media would lead to the press barons losing their influence. We didn't forsee a new generation of even richer, even nastier media barons having greater influence than Murdoch et al could have ever dreamt of.

[Boiler]

You might like to listen to yesterday's Start The Week in that case, entitled Life Online: Power, Risk and Resistance

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002xzrj

[Tubby Isaacs]

A few years ago we, naively, thought that the growth of the internet and social media would lead to the press barons losing their influence. We didn't forsee a new generation of even richer, even nastier media barons having greater influence than Murdoch et al could have ever dreamt of.

Even more than bypassing nasty press barons, there was hope (from the naive) that the internet would mean that "gatekeepers" couldn't stop the public seeing nice factual stuff made by nice people. Unfortunately, the absence of gatekeepers means that the public see lots more appalling shit that they wouldn't have seen before. And even when there's not active lying, it's very easy to film something that's always happened and the audience infers it's a brand new evil.

Of course, this sort of "worse than ever" stuff has always been around. There's an excellent book called Hooligan by Geoffrey Pearson written in the 80s which shows that the stuff people said about crime then, and recent collapse of standards, had always been said and really bad things had always happened. But how much more novel does it look when there's actual footage of it happening now?

[davidjay]

Basically, we're too nice. We let the bastards control the agenda.