And yet now every media outlet and pundit blames everything on the proliferation of fake news made possible because of easy access to sharing ideas. History does repeat itself.
Advertisements and propaganda actually work that's why so much is spent on them. You can often exactly measure the effect. But blaming radio, TV, magazines, billboards, comic books or the social web is incorrect: it's not the medium it's the message that has an effect.
And the message needs to be a certain form. Generic pulp novels and shooter games clearly do not cause violence where other forms of messaging do. Witch burning, lynchings and demagogues clearly come from some style of message that can drive masses of people simultaneously.
Exactly.
Thousands of years ago Socrates was complaining about the invention of writing which would "create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves".
Hundreds of years ago due to the invention of printing press "there was growing concern (...) that these cheap, plentiful books were seducing children into a life of crime and violence".
And today people worry about TV, video games, etc. - while at the same time holding books as the holy grail of knowledge.
All these are merely mediums for transfer of ideas. Blame the message, not the messenger.
If some amount of something didn't have meaningfully negative effects, than a vastly increased amount of that same thing can't possibly have negative effects!