For years, the internet has been shrinking. Not in size, not in data, but in ownership. A vast, decentralized network of personal blogs, forums, and independent communities has been corralled into a handful of paved prison yards controlled by a few massive corporations. Every post, every “friend,” every creative work—
  • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    14·
    1 day ago

    This can be said for the internet in general. Just look at the brainwashed masses. Without easy access to the internet via smartphones, Trump, Weidel, Wilders, Meloni etc. would never stand a fucking chance.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      7·
      1 day ago

      I was reading some articles the other day, and the impression I have is that that’s really not true for at least Trump.

      The Trump route was more:

      • Conservatives in the US felt that media had a liberal bias. Whether it did or didn’t doesn’t matter for this discussion — that was the perception.

      • Fox News offers a viewpoint appealing to conservatives. It becomes essentially the only mainstream conservative media outlet. Liberal viewers watch a variety of news media, but Fox News dominates among conservatives.

      • Fox News — already somewhat opinion-based from the start — starts to veer off into conspiracy land. Because so many conservatives watch Fox News, this has a major impact.

      There’s some back and forth here. It’s not that Fox just pushed ideas that were out there, but that they’re willing to show material based on what people will watch, and they gained more viewers than they lost if they ran bonkers stuff.

      https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/08/media/fox-news-hoax-paperback-book/index.html

      Section

      When Donald Trump lost the presidency last November, Fox News lost too. But unlike Trump, Fox was never in denial about its loss. The network’s executives and multi-million-dollar stars stared the ratings in the face every day and saw that their pro-Trump audience was reacting to the prospect of President Biden by switching channels or turning off the TV.

      “We’re bleeding eyeballs,” a Fox producer remarked in December. “And we’re scared.”

      To fix the problem, Fox ran even further to the right. And here’s the thing: It worked. It was toxic for the American political system, but it was profitable for Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.

      “Fox is a really different place than it was pre-election,” a commentator said to me, with regret, after Biden took office.

      The post-election changes at Fox happened one day at a time, one show at a time, but when viewed in totality, they are unmistakable and stark. Practically every change was about having less news on the air and more opinions-about-the-news. It was like serving dessert without dinner, when the dessert consisted of screaming about how awful the dinner was, and warning that the meal might be a socialist plot, and hey, while we’re at it, why are chefs so corrupt?

      And because Fox News is the primary trusted source of information for millions of Americans, including Republican elected officials and party activists, the changes affect everyone.

      Trump’s loss was a pivot point.

      ‘We denied the pandemic and now we’re denying the election outcome.’

      Fox’s ratings declined in the immediate aftermath of Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, so the slump after the networks projected Biden as president-elect was no surprise. But the precipitousness was a shock. Fox’s afternoon and evening hours fell off by 20, 25, 30 percent, even though the news cycle was nothing short of epic. For people at Fox who were used to winning for years, this was disorienting, and for some downright terrifying.

      “Our audience hates this,” one executive said to me in a moment of candor. “This” was Biden as president-elect and Kamala Harris as VP-elect. “They’re pissed,” said a second source. “Seething,” said another.

      I granted anonymity to these sources because they weren’t allowed to speak with outside reporters on the record, and because I wanted them to freely offer blunt assessments of the situation.

      Fox’s problem was that the audience suddenly had somewhere else to go. On the up-and- coming channel Newsmax, Biden wasn’t called president-elect right away. In other words, Trump wasn’t a loser yet. Newsmax’s 7 p.m. host Greg Kelly kept saying that he believed Trump could stay in office for four more years. “IT ISN’T OVER YET,” Newsmax’s banners proclaimed. While Fox only dabbled in election denialism at first, Newsmax went all-in.

      There wasn’t really any major center-right mainstream news source other than Fox News, so if Fox shifts into conspiracy-land, so does the conservative public.

      I dunno. Maybe the answer is something like a news source somewhere between CNN and Fox News. Something that a conservative audience is comfortable watching, but doesn’t fly off the handle to the degree that Fox has. It maybe can’t capture an audience that’s as large, but it only needs enough to be viable.

      I mean, there are center-right media sources like the Wall Street Journal, but those are kinda not aimed at mass audiences.

      • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtfEnglish
        6·
        1 day ago

        In Germany it’s definitely true. You can witness this process in real-time. I already know the “arguments” the brainwashed masses come up with and if there’s some new hot take, I usually go to one of the fact checking sites and immediately find said hot take there. It’s crazy how easy it is to manipulate the masses via social media. There has never been anything more efficient than this shit.

          • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtfEnglish
            1·
            13 hours ago

            I was talking about my personal observation in Germany. We don’t give a shit about Fox. We have BILD and Nius instead. Also state media keeps inviting Nazis to talk shows. But social media is the main driver here.