*Elon Musk and the oligarchs of the ‘Second Gilded Age’ can not only
sway the public – they can exploit their data, too**
*
Published: April 27, 2022 1.34pm BST
/Nolan Higdon//
/Lecturer of History and Media Studies, California State University,
East Bay
During the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, and the early decades of
the 20th century, U.S. captains of industry such as William Randolph
Hearst and Jay Gould used their massive wealth to dominate facets of the
economy, including the news media. They were, in many ways, prototype
oligarchs – by the dictionary definition, “very rich business leaders
with a great deal of political influence.”
Some have argued that the U.S. is in the midst of a Second Gilded Age
defined – like the first – by vast wealth inequality,
hyper-partisanship, xenophobia and a new crop of oligarchs using their
vast wealth to purchase media and political influence.
Which brings us to the announcement on April 25, 2022, that Tesla
billionaire Elon Musk is, barring any last-minute hitches, purchasing
the social media platform Twitter. It will put the wealthiest man on the
planet in control of one of the most influential means of communications
in world today.
As a media scholar, I suspect Musk’s desire in buying Twitter goes
beyond a desire to control and shape public discourse. Today’s
equivalent of the Gilded Age oligarchs – the handful of super-rich
Americans gobbling up increasing chunks of the media landscape – will
have that, but they will also have access to a trove of personal data of
users and news consumers.
[...]
continua qui:
https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-and-the-oligarchs-of-the-second-gilded-age-can-not-only-sway-the-public-they-can-exploit-their-data-too-181936
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