Rise of mass media and opaque conglomerates along with the poor economics of late 70's through 80's that saw many (mostly) manufacturing jobs get nuked by boardrooms.

Yes and no. At the time, Cyberpunk was a fringe movement by some rebel authors. Hence the "punk". Until then, mainstream science fiction was very much obsessed with nice utopias that used technology and communication for the benefit of society in far distant futures. Cyberpunk tore it all down and pointed at the possible nightmare of a not so distant future where all pervading technology leaves you cluelessly behind, crushed under the foot of megacorporate feudalism.

There are three unavoidable things in life: Death, Taxes and Samsung =)