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Social Media and Power Politics
(The Medium Is The Message or How Obama Taught Trump To Tweet)
“Information is power. Education is not power…Money is not power. Information is power.”
-- Dick Gregory
Control of the production and dissemination of information is the cornerstone of every successful, modern, mass political movement.
As far back as the invention of the printing press, information processing, including especially its mass distribution, has been a paramount concern of both the power elites and those who would displace them. Quantum leaps in information processing and control were signaled by, in quick succession, the advent of the telegraph, then the phonograph, radio, television, sound and video recording, and the Internet.
Social Media:
I f politics are about controlling the “social” aspects of people’s means and methods of achieving and maintaining a livelihood, then from their inception, “social media” are inherently “political.” Social media are overturning the “old” political media formats — buttons, posters, pamphlets, newsletters, newspapers, books, magazines, news reels, movies, radio, phone banks, direct mail, and even television itself — as the new (or at least latest) means by which the political is now…
