Twas a time when people wondered how an advanced nation like Germany allowed Hitler to become ruler

[Klaralven]

48. The combination of digital media and universal suffrage probably dooms democracy

Democracy developed from about 1700 on out of the conflict between the noble and ecclesiastic classes and the emerging capitalist bourgeoisie. In order to conduct business, the bourgeoisie had to be literate, numerate, and cognizant of the need for forethought. As printing became cheaper, periodicals dealing with political questions became popular in the coffeehouses and cafe's frequented by them, which led to the idea of public opinion arising out of reasoned analysis as being the basis for legitimate authority. This formed the basis for the transition to the legislative form of government with legislators elected by a restricted class of educated and propertied males.

In the twentieth century, this system was able to persist in spite of universal suffrage because public opinion was turned around. Public opinion was no longer bottom up as a synthesis of diverse opinion argued out among affinity groups interacting socially, but it became something conditioned through mass media by organizations still controlled by a small minority who largely hammered out compromises behind the scenes, rather than in public. The public interacted less in a social context, and they retired to their living rooms to watch television.

Digital media disrupts this, not because it expands media distribution, but because it vastly changes the cost and availability of the tools of media creation. You don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars of cameras, mixing boards, and editing tools to create video any more. Using the new tools allows anyone to become a "pamphleteer" akin to the 1700s, and the groups and followers on social media operate as so many "coffeehouses" where self-selecting affinity groups can read the pamphlets of their favorite opinion leaders, discuss them at length, and produce critical works for further consumption.

The difference now is that the inhabitants of the internet producing the new public opinion are not the literate, educated, far thinking bourgeoisie. They are the illiterate, uneducated masses who are keen on instant gratification. This, coupled with the fact that the problems faced by government are much more complex, hard to understand, and difficult to solve due to two centuries of progress, means that democracy is most likely an unstable form of government.