I suppose information control has been an aspect of the human condition since…well, forever. Ever since humans started trying to convey thoughts to other humans, controlling the amount and content of said info has been a primary step in controlling the majority of the masses. Let’s dig.
Basic concepts of communication are quite primitive. Imagine being somewhere that you don’t know the first thing about the language written or spoken. You revert to pointing, gesturing, and doing whatever charades you can pull off to get necessary data—order food from a restaurant, locate the bathroom, where in the world is my hotel? The questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how are reduced to minimalism. ‘Why’ and ‘how’ become entirely secondary to ‘what’ and ‘where’. It is purely an article of blind faith that you didn’t get robbed via currency exchange when buying something.
Over the centuries, those that knew information had a leg up on those that did not. Not much has changed in that regard, over the centuries. Bridging the language gap was and is a major feat regarding shipping, trade, and international travel. Who knows how many battles were fought among sailing ships, just because no one could effectively communicate with others outside of their village?
In medieval times, only the royalty and some townspeople ever bothered to learn to read. And those books and such were written by hand, transcribed over and over. The feudal serfs had no idea there were written words anywhere. Their lot in life: work for the King, and rely on his benevolence to give things the peasant couldn’t grow himself, or exchange his grown produce for items in town. The King usually was responsible for the safety of his folks—often, by conscripting the healthy of those folks into his military. Note that at this time, knowledge to commonfolk was oral, as fathers told legends they had heard from their fathers, down to their sons. Lessons of morality, safety, good and bad decision-making, and virtues and evils of all kinds were imparted from these tales.
Religion had its role here, too. Commonfolk were illiterate, so they relied heavily upon the readings of their local priests, ministers, abbots, and other clergy. Bibles were rare, as they too were hand-written transcriptions. It is of very little surprise that power gravitated to the heads of religions—the Vatican and the Pope had ENORMOUS sway over entire countries. It is unknown if this dynamic would have continued had the commonfolk been literate. Certainly, when Franciscan monks traveled the world, spreading the Gospel, they often did so with Bibles they copied word for word themselves. They introduced their beliefs upon native folks that were less literate than serfs. But spread they did, and civilization as a whole owes a great debt to those selfless spreaders of knowledge.
The creation of the Guttenberg press was one of the most important things to happen to mankind up to that point. Mass production of written material changed the world. Now, for very little expense or time, a book could be copied and distributed. It is no surprise that the Bible was the first work that was applied this new technology. Reading materials became commonplace, so the need to learn to read spread much wider into the lower rungs of society. Of course, there were always the outliers, that wanted that knowledge long before, but now it was the rule, rather than the exception. The organization mode of ‘schoolhouse’, with teacher (school marm), books, etc., wasn’t far behind.
Knowledge in general became more distributed, and advanced learning centers, colleges and universities, became goals for all, not just the rich, royal, or well-connected. Libraries were now popping up all over the place, not just rare collections, such as in England and Alexandria. One may still have to ride a horse or train to utilize said libraries, but they WERE available.
Let’s skip forward to today. We have more information easily available than any time in history. Nearly everyone owns a smart cell phone, that, via Internet, can access nearly all of mankind’s accumulated knowledge base! No more travel to a library necessary! Want to learn about a topic? Teacher, professor, expert on that topic is no longer required—just GOOGLE it! Warning: you may need the teacher, professor, or expert to help you UNDERSTAND the material available! You can blow away a self-proclaimed ‘know-it-all’ by getting the right answer to a trivia question instantly!
To continue: a newsworthy event occurred a thousand miles away? You can read about it RIGHT NOW (well, as soon as someone writes about it—if the powers that be ALLOW the writing to happen). Sounds optimal, doesn’t it? But there is a HUGE caveat: the social media networks can and do limit or slant the information available. There is no validation of the accuracy of the information available. And if the platforms decide not to allow a story to be viewed? It is as if it simply did not happen. Even more than the TV news networks of the 1960s, more people get their news and facts via these social platforms: GOOGLE, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. I call them the BIG 4. They do not have a total monopoly on news and information, but they are close enough to be a major concern. Yes, there are still independent sources available, but the typical data consumer stops after reading (or not reading) the headlines from the BIG 4 listed. Those platforms have the same ability to slant information to their readers as the primary information holders from centuries ago, albeit with much better technology.
If GOOGLE says a person is bad, the common Internet user may take that as truth, whether it is factual or not. If Facebook limits the reach of Conservative posts, only Liberal posts will be seen by the masses. Via this narrow prism of information exchange, masses (not everyone, but a majority) will see current events ONLY in the view that the BIG 4 want them to see. With this dynamic, it is quite easy to convince an entire electorate that candidate A is a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic tyrant-to-be, and candidate B is a good-hearted, well-intentioned mentor of sorts, even if he may put his foot in his mouth a bit. All the BIG 4 have to do is convince enough folks of these ‘facts’, regardless of the accuracy of said facts, and the election will have the results the BIG 4 want. We are not to the ‘2 + 2 = 5’ platitude of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ ‘Ministry of Truth’, but we are not far off.
