The fifth estate promise is pressed

Tell JD Vance funny A story at the top of American dynamics In Washington this week. He recalled the Silicon Valley dinner, which was his wife, Osha, before he became a vice president, as talking about the machines that replace humans in the workforce. According to Vance, the CEO has not been named from Tech Giant Tech that the unemployed in the future can still find the purpose in completely overwhelming digital games. “We have to get Hell out of here. These people are madly affected,” Osha wrote a text message under the table.

Why did Verse think it is good to tell this story confusing, given that it contradicts the main theme of his speech – but at least laughed. As the Usha Vance, the global view of the technical classes and ordinary workers appears to be hostile. But her husband’s main message was the opposite: The technology and ordinary workers sector had a common attention in strengthening the “great American industrial renaissance”.

Vans’s speech was a clear attempt to reconcile the wings of the political movement of President Donald Trump: the lack of his technical brothers – or prolageki – led by Elon Musk, and the Maga citizens made by Steve Bannon. Bannon denounced global technology leaders as hostile to America and Musk description As a truly evil person, “and” illegal immigrants. “

Vans declared himself “a proud member in both tribes.” It may be right that Musk and Bannon are involved despite their permeable differences. Both are elitist elections for the two elections with a common mission to cancel the power of the administrative state and the prevailing press.

Historians have once described the three old properties of power as the clergy, nobles and the public. A fourth drug – the press – later. The fifth property has emerged – social media – since then. But the fifth estate can be considered an update for the third number programs: the general armed with smartphones. In this view, Bannon may be a Tribune in the third legacy while Musk is the fifth hero. In the Trump movement, the two fused.

In his book Fifth estate, William Datton has argued that social media is often a new and positive form of strength, allowing individuals to access alternative sources of information and fill in teamwork. Greta Thonberg sees the Swedish schools that have emerged as a global environmental activist, as a sticker. “It is the technology measure that changes the role of the individual in politics and society,” says Li.

META CEO META, META CEO, also announced that the fifth inheritance is a global voice for the audience that gives one -time voice. “People who have the ability to express themselves widely is a new type of power in the world,” ” He said in 2019.

That’s all the theory is great. But the negative effects of social media have become increasingly striking: wrong information, incitement to hate And the emergence of a “anxiety” from adolescents. Social media has revived from editing technology to one of the manipulation. The political process has been eroded and kidnapped by the opposing populists.

One study 840,537 individuals in 116 countries from 2008 to 2017 found that global internet expansion via mobile phone tends to reduce the approval of the government. This trend has been particularly marked in Europe, undermining support for current governments and promoting anti -populist populists. “The spread of the Internet via mobile phone leads to a decrease in confidence in the government. When the government is corrupt more likely to understand that the government is corrupt,” one of the authors participating in the paper tells me Sergey Guriev, Dean of the London College of Business.

The populist politicians were quick to take advantage of the voter dissatisfaction raised by social media and the use of the same technology to fill in support in cheap and interactive ways. “It is normal for anti -elite politicians to use new technologies that the elites have not created,” says Goriev.

The fifth estate has certainly rocked the old gate of information in politics and the media. But the new digital gate guards appeared to those who see what is on the Internet. Buy Musk “First Buddy” for Trump Twitter, now X, which enhances or reduces posts in non -accountable ways. The relevant divorced people often provide governmental and government “censorship” a cover for more treacherous forms to control the algorithm.

Progressive activists admit that they are equally on social media, but they have not abandoned hope. “It is more important than ever the struggle for the future. We need to use these tools as we can.” With the presence of 70 million members in 194 countries, Avaaz mobilizes work against corruption and campaigns for algorithm, as is included in the European Union’s digital services law. “We need to communicate in Technicolor with all the feelings and resonances that nationalist populists use,” says Wander.

For such progressive, three settlement facts appear from this debate. The power of the fifth estate is a sabotage force that does not disappear. The populists were particularly smart in their use of it. To compete, the progressive needs to raise their game.

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