PUBLIC COMMUNICATION HAS FUNDAMENTALLY SHIFTED
For most of modern history, the question around power and influence was: Who controls the message? Governments, media organizations, and institutions competed to shape public narrative. The assumption was that if you could craft compelling stories and get them distributed, you could influence what people believed and how societies made decisions. That’s no longer how it works. Today, the question isn’t only who controls the message—it’s who controls the infrastructure that determines whether the message gets seen at all.
WHAT’S CHANGED
Public discourse now happens on private platforms with only a handful of corporations controlling the systems that determine what becomes visible, what gains traction, and what gets silenced. This isn’t about content moderation or “censorship” in the traditional sense. It’s about architecture. The platforms themselves—their design, their algorithms, their economic models—govern how communication happens.
Four dynamics are reshaping public discourse:
1. PLATFORMS GOVERN VISIBILITY
What reaches people isn’t determined by the quality of ideas or what’s in the public interest. It’s determined by algorithmic systems designed to maximize engagement and profit. These systems amplify whatever generates attention—which means conflict, sensationalism, and emotional intensity consistently outperform nuanced argument. This isn’t politically neutral. Algorithmic amplification systematically favors certain political styles: nationalist narratives, fear-based messaging, alarmist framing, us-vs-them rhetoric. Traditional media outlets (cable news, partisan websites) produce sensational content. Platform algorithms amplify it. This creates a feedback loop where the most extreme, emotionally charged versions of political narratives dominate public attention, not because publics prefer them, but because infrastructure rewards them.
2. INFRASTRUCTURE SHAPES WHAT’S POSSIBLE
The tools people use to communicate—social platforms, messaging apps, AI systems—aren’t neutral channels. They’re designed with specific assumptions about how communication should work, what counts as valuable content, and who should have voice. These design choices encode power. They determine what kinds of messages can spread, what forms of organizing are possible, and what modes of expression get amplified or suppressed.
Most people experience platforms as transparent and straightforward—just a way to reach an audience. But the infrastructure itself is reshaping what realities are believed and what becomes politically possible.
Most people experience platforms as transparent and straightforward—just a way to reach an audience. But the infrastructure itself is reshaping what realities are believed and what becomes politically possible.
3. POWER OPERATES THROUGH ARCHITECTURE, NOT JUST CONTENT
The most consequential decisions about public discourse aren’t made by governments or media organizations. They’re made by platform companies through design choices, algorithmic parameters, data capture, and infrastructure control. These aren’t technical decisions, they’re political decisions about who gets heard and what gains traction. They’re made privately with minimal public accountability or democratic governance, fundamentally changing the terrain of public communication.
4. DIGITAL MONOPOLIES UNDERMINE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
A handful of corporations control the infrastructure of public communication. Meta, Google, Amazon, and a few others govern the systems that mediate democratic discourse. They decide content policies, design algorithmic curation, control data flows, and determine who has access to communication infrastructure and on what terms. This creates a fundamental problem for democracy: Public discourse requires some form of democratic governance and accountability, but the infrastructure mediating this discourse is privately owned, governed by corporate interests, and optimized for profit rather than democratic values.
Previous forms of media concentration were regulated as public utilities or operated with public interest obligations. Digital platforms emerged in a different regulatory environment, treated as private companies offering services, and not as infrastructure requiring democratic governance. The result: The most powerful systems shaping public communication operate with minimal accountability and democratic oversight. A few corporations are making decisions about the conditions of public speech that affects billions of people—with no electoral accountability, no democratic mandate, and no obligation to serve the public interest. This is a fundamental shift in power and public discourse—from institutions with some democratic accountability to private monopolies with none.
WHY THIS MATTERS
This shapes policy debates, election outcomes, social movements, and everyday decisions about what’s true. Understanding how these systems work is the difference between navigating this terrain strategically and operating blind, between accepting infrastructure constraints as inevitable and recognizing where intervention is possible. This isn’t fixable through better messaging or content strategy, it requires seeing the infrastructure itself—and building alternatives.
LEARN MORE
For those interested in the intellectual foundations of this work, I’ve compiled a [Field Guide to Narrative Power & Platform Systems] — a curated list on media studies, platform governance, political economy, and democratic theory.
For further inquiry: monte@monteritz.com