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A comment on UK votes to leave EU. Parent comment

Re:UK votes to leave EU by johnchristopher on Friday June 24, 2016 @01:33AM (#11966850)
I disagree with #2. The media have always said they are the gatekeeper (or the fourth power or any other labels) but it's a self assessment. Yellow press, tabloids, etc. feed off of extreme or stupid opinions that get labeled as `politically incorrect but true`. This becomes the visible mainstream discourse but time and time again elections and referendums show this is just opinions and sale driven editorial politics.

The Internet didn't break this dynamic, it's just another media in the end (regarding the press) with a louder audience for the same ideas. Moreover the fragmentation of countries into regions doesn't follow from that. It comes from national politics. National politics that just get votes and support from following point #1. And inevitably leads to a blaming game (they are a lot of Nigel across Europe).

I might be wrong and I don't have time to word my opinions like I would, sorry. Just my 2ç in the wee hour of morning.

Ah. Strikes everywhere in Belgium today.

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Re:UK votes to leave EU by thewarrior on Friday June 24, 2016 @02:07AM (#11967050)
But the internet allows people on the so called fringe to see that they may not be the fringe after all.

You can say anything online and that widens the scope of what is considered acceptable discourse.

Notice how the media tries to black out Trump's insanity but it gets so much attention on social media that they're forced to cover his tweets.

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Re:UK votes to leave EU by humanrebar on Friday June 24, 2016 @07:40AM (#11968931)
> Notice how the media tries to black out Trump's insanity...

Completely not true. They air hours upon hours of uncut press conferences. They could easily summarize the press conference in a 90 second piece ("Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump today..."), but they don't.

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Re:UK votes to leave EU by johnchristopher on Friday June 24, 2016 @05:30AM (#11968177)
The internet is a tool, not a political method.

I think you'll find this book interesting:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/09/net-delusion-m... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/books/review/Siegel-t.html...

https://www.amazon.com/Net-Delusion-Dark-Internet-Freedom/dp...

> But the internet allows people on the so called fringe to see that they may not be the fringe after all.

Not really, the internet also has that loudest voice syndrom.

> You can say anything online and that widens the scope of what is considered acceptable discourse.

Or you get drowned in an endless sea of information, a dot in the noisegraph.

> Notice how the media tries to black out Trump's insanity but it gets so much attention on social media that they're forced to cover his tweets.

Can't comment on that as I don't live in the US :/ but it's an interesting point. How effecient can they really be at hiding something vs ignoring it.

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Re:UK votes to leave EU by barsonme on Friday June 24, 2016 @01:18PM (#11971630)
> Notice how the media tries to black out Trump's insanity but it gets so much attention on social media that they're forced to cover his tweets.

What? They love covering him because they get so many viewers. Hell, they're partially the reason he catapulted into the limelight--had they treated his antics the same as the other politicians' he'd have received far less air time than he has so far.

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