17 notes &

Just like video killed the radio star, film killed vaudeville, and television killed bowling leagues, so did blogs allegedly kill journalism and mainstream media, replacing these with idiots and amateurs who failed to check their facts and ranted about their pet issues (as well as issues with their pets).

There’s a constant underlying all this killing – corporate power. Even as some media forms eclipse others, global conglomerates profit from the innovations and pernicious arrangements of state power benefit from a diverted populace. Television can’t deliver the requisite eyeballs? No problem. Switch gears, locate other sites to capitalize. The dominance of capitalism as a system requires changes in industry; innovation drives capitalism.

State forms adapt as well: disintegrated spectacles allow for ever more advanced forms of monitoring, tracking, and surveillance. People plead for more cameras to keep them safe as they shop and happily relinquish personal data in exchange for saving a few cents here or there, for shaving seconds off this site or that.