The printing press, that wonder constellation of Johannes Gutenberg, revolutionized the world like never before. It spread knowledge, spawned industrial revolution and the enlightenment age but also with-it toxic propaganda.

Thanks to the press and massive publications, Europe degenerated to one of its bloodiest war for 30 years. It is out of the 30-year war that the world finally produced the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and finally the rise of the new order that is the modern sovereign state as we know it.

Social media too has a penchant for producing extremities. It has not triggered a war yet, still its proclivity to jolt the sensibilities of the social and political order is petrifying.

In the US, the ghosts of the 2016 elections have refused to wane. And this has to do with communication, more so social media.  Need we say anymore on the Brexit fiasco! The latest is the mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. All fingers pointed to incitement by the then US President Donald J. Trump. This led to the unprecedented banning of Mr. Trump from social media platforms.

Media, be it mass communication or social, are undeniably influential.

Public Sphere

instance, during its golden age, the legacy media enjoyed the glorified distinction as the real public sphere that aided open discourse critical for democracy.   But that is the ideal – where a romanticized media end.

Such critics as Walter Lipmann, Jürgen Habermas and even Noam Chomsky have a different perception of even the legacy media.

With time the news media epically refashioned from the Fourth Estate to a real estate – rubbishing the very sacred tenets of public service whose esteem it was anchored on. Instead, the media cheekily jumped to bed with the advertiser and other interested influencers- adversaries and exploiters of the public.