The Post-Journalism Age

(Originally Written 02/04/2018)

We live in era when major media news outlets are declared “Fake News” by the leader of the free world. We are at a threshold, and, increasingly, people will demand “news” that is based purely on perception and conjecture and appeals to the listener’s own biases. Most of the time, the listener will not have the insight to recognize that the media that he or she is consuming is nothing more than a reflection of who he or she is. Gone will be the days when media is expected to try to change minds. The game of changing minds is over. The game of reinforcing the way that minds already think has begun. 

We seem to be on a trajectory of the self who is interested in the good of the whole to the self who is interested in the voyeurism of others’ lives to, finally, the self who is interested in only the self. I see a man in 2030 sitting in his living room. On his tv is an image taken by the video camera hanging behind him on the wall. He is watching himself watching himself, ad infinitum. It is endlessly condensed toward a never-ending spiral of self-gratification. Just what our smartphone habits have been telling us all along. 

So get ready, folks, for the age of atomization. We are being broken down into our smallest parts, the part that is you and only you and what you want and what you care about. The political elite love this because no longer will masses of people so easily unite under common causes. We have been scattered, with no bonds to ease our alienation. Finally, it will come to our attention that our technology has made us weak — that our self-interest has made us powerless. Then and only then, if it’s not too late, will begin to rebuild a society that has power to create a world where we all feel some sense of belonging.

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