Sam Liebeskind

Social media stopped being primarily about connecting socially a long time ago. People still use a range of technologies to connect to friends and build relationships, but we don’t call those technologies – like texting and group chats – “social media.” Media shared on platforms may support social connections by creating a common culture, just as... See more

So when people opt to devote their energy to tracking the latest TikTok star or scrolling content instead of nurturing interpersonal relationships, they are effectively amusing themselves to death.2

In 2006, we imagined a social media ecosystem that prioritized strengthening connections through media rather than one that replaced connections with... See more

Dewey’s faith in the potential of institutions that treat democratic knowledge not as a problem to be managed but as a capacity to be cultivated is harder to carry right now. But the alternative is accepting Lippmann’s premises wholesale, conceding that the only question worth asking is who manages the herd and how.

Social media platforms don’t produce a common public; they produce competing sub-publics, each with its own sense of what everyone knows. To answer the question Habermas never adequately posed: the public sphere, such as it is, functions for those who own it.

The press that Dewey hoped could enable public formation was instead consolidated to prevent it. The newspaper did not become an instrument of inquiry; it manufactured consent for a status quo that prioritized profit at almost any cost and condoned war for almost any reason. The fourth estate never belonged to the public, and it had always been in... See more