Will Stancil: You’re never going to be able to understand modern politics until you stop ignoring the role that the medium of communication plays. People today spend truly massive amounts of time immersed in various forms of media - mostly online! The narratives and dynamics of this media shapes their world.

You’re never going to be able to understand modern politics until you stop ignoring the role that the medium of communication plays. People today spend truly massive amounts of time immersed in various forms of media - mostly online! The narratives and dynamics of this media shapes their world.

No one wants to talk about this, especially left of center, because they’re ideologically fixated on the idea that people are responding to material conditions, or else are free-thinking, independent agents in the marketplace of ideas.

The notion that people are so much flotsam being pushed around by a narrative tide in these massive communication forum gets rejected out of hand - “Ha, are you saying nobody thinks for themselves? Are you saying people can’t perceive reality?” Yes! What in history makes you believe otherwise?

All of history is people believing outrageous falsehoods because those falsehoods were widely or universally echoed in their community. What do you think happens when those communities become mass media, and then unregulated mass media shaped almost entirely the imperative of online virality?

Hey Will, I wonder if I could get your thoughts on this, along those lines www.liberalcurrents.com/contributing...

Contributing to the Liberal Project as a Writer: A Primerwww.liberalcurrents.com How writing from the very abstract to the very particular can help to advance a liberal agenda.

Nobody on the left wants to admit this because it denigrates their own views from righteous awakening to just as group-thinky as the MAGA, which doesn't change a thing about which one is morally better but feels like it does, chips away at feelings of superiority

This is true. But the reason This is important is that we don't live in a deterministic world. People are moral agents and we're responsible for questioning everything--especially things that appeal to us emotionally.

But we also have to make strategic in light of the reality that people do not accurately perceive reality.

So most people are incapable of rational thought but you're special somehow?

ya human beings have chosen the trivial path of property & privilege hoarding and thus fail to develop any actual humanity which isn't a performance derived from said property & privilege.

We spent months hearing about how inflation was so bad. Remember all of those stories about how expensive milk had gotten? Then once the election started, it was all about how old Biden is. People have been conditioned to be more supportive of Trump for the entire Biden Administration.

I dunno. To prove this you’d have to demonstrate that a political party could thrive electorally while offering almost nothing of material value to the vast majority of its voters, instead just feeding them vibes and promises to punish people they have been taught to hate

But sometimes real world events do shape the narrative. Or are you a thorough going post-modernist? All there is is the text?

Sure, but "the narrative" is also a real world event ppl experience; some times the ONLY version of it. Like: "the narrative" is all your friends repeating it, your coworkers repeating it, your discord, your feed, your radio, your boss, the local news...

like: "narratives" aren't just stories or propaganda, they form the cloud of "acceptable" ideas and opinions ppl live in and build their own thinking out of in an almost environmental way.

Even though you are right, the local elections in Turkey were the exact opposite. The echo chamber on social media still persists. The appearance on social media was in favor of the ruling party, but the opposition achieved a great victory.

"People's lives are structured by narratives" - Thank you Will Stancil, very noteworthy observation. Totally not the most obvious thing in the world 🙄

Have you considered that your problem may be that media has always shaped narratives, but nowadays it's far more democratic. Rather than just the man paid by billionaires on the TV telling you what to think?

I’m reminded of Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase of “the medium is the message”. mcluhan.org/the-medium-i...

McLuhan.org | 'The Medium is the Message'mcluhan.org According to McLuhan, the medium has a greater impact on human perception and behavior than the specific information it carries.

Small blessing that most people spend that screen time playing candy crush and watching weird shock videos instead of engaging with political infotainment. They’re probably, ironically, mentally healthier for it than the gossip and outrage addicted Twitterati.

Online matters, but the influence of a guy talking into a microphone for three hours on local radio or a podcast is wildly underrated.

Online media these days is mostly right wing nonsense filling people's heads with jiggery pokery applesauce.

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