Ari Melber has an interesting article – Web Puts Dog-Whistle Politics on a Leash. He looks at how many previously effective coded attacks are now exposed to public view – diminishing their appeal to campaigners.
This new media environment undermines political attacks that turn on coded meanings and hidden messages, because now anything can be exposed and cheaply disseminated. Observers used to worry that the web would fragment our media consumption into private little silos–that famous “Daily Me.” Yet in presidential politics, an inverse dynamic is emerging. Small groups of people are using the web to expose the targeted appeals of the analog world, and then injecting them into the mass media for the whole nation to assess. And many voters do not like what they see.
