By Yilena Hector Rodriguez and Claudia Fonseca Sosa on January 29, 2025 from Havana
Ignacio Ramonet, Photo: Enrique González (Enro)
“We are living in a post-media society. Witnessing the end of the masses,” said the journalist and doctor of social sciences Ignacio Ramomet, speaking this Wednesday at the 6th International Conference for World Balance, which is meeting this week at the Palacio de las Convenciones.
The professor of Communication Theory, originally from Spain and now based in France, referred to the current situation of the media in the world and the influence of social networks.
Ramonet made an initial observation: “When we talk about communication, it is not so much about ideas as about the vehicles that move ideas. In other words, about the media”.
He considered that “one of the paradoxes of communication today is that over time the tool used to transport ideas becomes more important than the ideas themselves”.
“In the long run it turned out that the language that humanizes that great ape is more important than what the ape said. When writing was invented 5000 years ago, what was written was probably important, but in the long run, writing was more important,” Ramonet illustrated.
The intellectual stressed that today ‘the medium is more important than the message. Although that goes against what we believe.’
He added that “the media change but they don’t disappear, they become the message”.
Currently, he said, “the medium is social networks and the networks are more relevant than what is said on them”.
A second observation by Ramonet on communication is that “major changes in communication transform societies. It is not other spheres that change societies, but communication. Writing, the invention of the printing press, radio, television, social networks, all changed societies and politics”.
Meanwhile, he stressed that “we are in a post-media society. Witnessing the end of the masses”.
In his speech, he recalled when a court convicted Australian journalist Julian Assange. “He was not found guilty of some journalistic farce. He was accused of espionage. He spent 14 years in prison simply for telling the truth. Today a journalist can be imprisoned for telling the truth. And in countries that are not dictatorships,” he said.
He then questioned “what journalism is today if it does not know how to discern truth from lies. Information and truth are in crisis”.
For Ramonet, “we are witnessing a mass extinction of traditional media and even digital media”.
He said that “the most successful digital medium of the last 10 years is VICE. Very fashionable. In the summer of 2023 its value was estimated at between 2.5 and 2.7 billion dollars”.
However, “VICE went bankrupt later. We are not just talking about the print media going bankrupt or the traditional media”.
“Assange has not yet spoken, because part of his sentence means not talking about the reasons why he was persecuted,” he said.
The intellectual also referred to another news item, when there was a presidential election in Romania two months ago. ”For approximately 30 years, candidates from the Social Democratic Party had been coming to power in Romania. In the first round, a pro-Russian candidate was the winner. The Supreme Court annulled the elections because a media outlet had had too much influence and this had affected the results. And that media outlet was TikTok.
He said that “this is the first time that a country has annulled democratic elections on the pretext that a media outlet has too much influence on society.”
“When Obama won in 2008, he was the first candidate in history to use email on a massive scale. And this opened doors for him. Back then, email was what social networks are today. Nobody told Obama that he won using email and that this invalidated the election.
“When Trump won the first time, he used Twitter on a massive scale. He himself acknowledged this. He had 157 million followers. In the United States there are 350 million inhabitants and more than 200 million use social networks every day. Nobody invalidated Trump’s election.”
Ramonet stressed that “the influence of social networks today creates confusion. We are facing a profound extinction of traditional media and rejection of information by citizens.”
He cited a Reuters survey showing that “in 45 countries, 40% of citizens express information fatigue. They no longer want to be informed. 43% of citizens in developed countries say that being informed is not important. There is no appetite for information. Traditional media no longer have the influence they once had.”
However, he pointed out, ”the networks don’t work the same way.”
“This is a post-media society. There are literally no longer any mass media. Many think that the masses is a concept from the past, but it is very recent. It was not addressed by Marx or Lenin. Masses is a concept from the 1920s.
“The concept of mass culture emerged in the 1950s. The masses have just arrived and as soon as they arrive they are already disappearing. It is the media that create the concepts and societies,“ he said.
Ramonet then asked himself: ‘What would we call the effect that the media has on an audience? It is public opinion. It is the media that create public opinion. The concept of the public is also very recent, linked to the media.”
He emphasized that ’today that the mass media are disappearing, the masses are doing so at the same time.”
“Fascist parties took advantage of the masses because they are easy to seduce,” said the intellectual, adding that ”modern stadiums were created at the beginning of the 20th century to gather the masses and influence them. In most traditional media, the audience is passive. Sometimes you can only be a receiver. But the networks change this.
“In the networks we are almost more senders than receivers. The networks make this idea of a passive audience or passive mass lose strength,” he stressed.
Similarly, ”what the network consumer does is essentially scrolling and then issuing criteria when something interests him.
“Now each person is a medium,” said Ramonet, and he referred to the fact that “Mark Zuckerberg’s first decision to show Trump that he was in favor of his policy was to reduce moderation on Facebook. Like Elon Musk, when he bought Twitter and transformed it into X, he said he was going to rescue freedom of expression.”
“Now lies are rife. When I see information that goes in the direction of what I believe, I spread it. But sometimes it’s false. We can’t protect ourselves against that,” he said, stressing that ‘data today is the oil of yesterday. It’s what drives the economy.”
On the impact of artificial intelligence, he said that it ’is the new medium. It feeds on networks and shapes networks.”
“On the eve of his inauguration, Trump held a meeting with leaders of Open AI and other companies to sign an agreement to advance a new generation of artificial intelligence. Between three companies, they put $500 billion on the table.
“On January 20, the Chinese company Deep Seek released its small artificial intelligence program. It is as effective as Chat GPT. It cost $5.7 million to develop it.
“If the Chinese have just pulled off this technological coup, it means that the battle is now on the level of artificial intelligence,” he explained.
He concluded that “Latin America should integrate, develop its own applications so as not to share our data with these companies, most of them American. It is a matter for reflection”.
The 6th International Conference for World Balance is focusing on international solidarity with Cuba and the defense of peace and just causes. The event, which opened the previous evening at the Havana Conference Center, is being attended by more than 600 delegates from 98 countries and 400 Cubans. According to the organizers, this high level of participation consolidates the forum as one of the largest and most representative of its kind in the world.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English