{"id":10961,"date":"2020-07-30T08:48:31","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T13:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=10961"},"modified":"2021-06-12T07:38:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T12:38:10","slug":"the-new-media-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/07\/30\/the-new-media-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"The new media regime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here\u2019s a back-of-the-envelope hypothesis on the “new media regime” and some open questions that follow from it.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two groups are faring best these days under the current (new) media regime<\/a>.* <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is surveillance capitalists<\/a>, who have developed ways to monetize and harvest new data technologies directly for the accumulation of wealth. (That covers the Jeff Bezoses, Mark Zuckerbergs, Larry Pages and Sergey Brins. If you add software billionaires like Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Larry Ellison, you have 7 of the 10 wealthiest<\/a> individuals in the world.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second is conspiracy entrepreneurs<\/a> (such as the Alex Joneses, al-Baghdadis, and Q\u2019s<\/a>), who know how to work social media into new forms<\/a> of cultural capital (including millenarian cults like QAnon and the Islamic State), and the politicians<\/a> who know how to work that capital into political capital<\/a> (the Trumps, Putins, Bolsonaros, and Modis). There\u2019s overlap between those two groups, and will probably be more of it, so I list them together. (Why conspiracy? Because in unsettling times people seek explanations, and in the new media regime, those explanations can be forwarded without much, if any, support<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The hypothesis is that the overlap in interests between these two groups will shape a significant chunk of the landscape of global politics in coming years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open questions for me are these: <\/p>\n\n\n\n