Elon Musk and the oligarchs of the ‘Second Gilded Age’ can not only sway the public – they can exploit their data, too

Published: April 27, 2022 1.34pm BST

Nolan Higdon
Lecturer of History and Media Studies, California State University, East Bay

During the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, and the early decades of the 20th century, U.S. captains of industry such as William Randolph Hearst and Jay Gould used their massive wealth to dominate facets of the economy, including the news media. They were, in many ways, prototype oligarchs – by the dictionary definition, “very rich business leaders with a great deal of political influence.”

Some have argued that the U.S. is in the midst of a Second Gilded Age defined – like the first – by vast wealth inequality, hyper-partisanship, xenophobia and a new crop of oligarchs using their vast wealth to purchase media and political influence.

Which brings us to the announcement on April 25, 2022, that Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is, barring any last-minute hitches, purchasing the social media platform Twitter. It will put the wealthiest man on the planet in control of one of the most influential means of communications in world today.

As a media scholar, I suspect Musk’s desire in buying Twitter goes beyond a desire to control and shape public discourse. Today’s equivalent of the Gilded Age oligarchs – the handful of super-rich Americans gobbling up increasing chunks of the media landscape – will have that, but they will also have access to a trove of personal data of users and news consumers.

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continua qui: https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-and-the-oligarchs-of-the-second-gilded-age-can-not-only-sway-the-public-they-can-exploit-their-data-too-181936