The medium is the membership
This is actually a short post. It looks long because of the screen shots that I’ve added as exhibits.
I put this post together in a hurry because today’s news coverage provides a good illustration of the phrase I coined in Trump 4: swamping the brain, “the medium is the membership” to explain that today, in the Ideas Era, the source of political differences is…
…how and where people consume ideas. Marshall McLuhan famously said The Medium is the Massage, now the medium is also the membership.
…We used to be able to rely on place to provide a common news feed. Everyone shared the same information sources: gossip, newspapers and, until a couple of decades ago, a handful of radio and TV stations…
Now we have real mass communication - not just mass distribution of curated ideas – and virtual communities have replaced place.
The differences are on full display today. Here’s the splash pages of three cable networks and the front page of the NY Times.
NY Times
I can’t insert the Times here but this will give you the flavour:
The banner headline is “Tariff Shock Waves Circle the Globe”
Two of the three articles above the fold are about the tariffs (the other is about Trump firing six members of the National Security Council on the advice of a far right kook for disloyalty to Trump.)
“Turning Longtime Grievance into Emergency
President Trump upended the international trading system…”
and
“Markets Dive as Countries Vow Reprisal…
The scale of President Trump’s global tariffs began to sink in as stock markets fell sharply, countries warned of retaliation and American companies and consumers braced for the impact on their bottom lines and bank accounts. The S & P tumbled nearly 5 percent…Business groups, trade experts, economists, Democratic lawmakers and even a few Republicans swiftly denounced the tariffs on Thursday as an unncesesary drag on the economy. The effect on American wallets will be broad, as companies are expected to pass on at least some of the costs of the tariffs to customers.”
CNBC
CNBC led with the tanking stock market and included analysis critical of Trump’s trade action.
CNN
CNN presented the situation in much the same way as CNBC.
Fox Business
Meanwhile at Fox, China’s response was the big news but the op-eds supported Trump’s tariffs.
Doug.. as usual your modified paraphrase is timely. “The Medium is the Membership” Bob👍👍👍🍁