Page 86 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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The Roots of Pluralism 10:39
the American Automobile Association. 93 About half of all such groups
ever created in United States were founded between 1870 and 1920. 94
By 1920, the United States had been transformed from a society of in-
dividuals to a society of groups and individuals. 95 In all of these ways,
the complexity of the democratic system was increasing rapidly through
a greatly expanded policy agenda, a much larger and more specialized
set of political institutions, a more elaborate electoral apparatus, and
a dramatically expanded body of private organizations, in addition to
individuals, as constituents. By the end of this period, the number of
sources and destinations for the flow of political information, as well as
its content, had expanded geometrically.
The key implication for the information regime was that neither the
parties nor the newspapers could continue to satisfy on their own the
bulk of demands by political actors for political information and com-
munication under these new conditions. The newspaper business did
grow more specialized, with salutary business consequences, but it could
not maintain its central position in the flow of information. The mass
papers of the Gilded and Progressive Ages focused to a greater extent
on issues, emphasizing the currency of news. To a degree not reached
by newspapers of the early and mid-nineteenth century, turn-of-the-
96
century newspapers prioritized the delivery of information. Like other
economic enterprises, the newspapers themselves became large, special-
ized, complex institutions operating in an environment where the man-
agement and control of information was an increasingly central theme.
Papers were filled with the sensationalism and “yellow journalism” of the
turn of century, even as they experimented with the more serious kind of
informational reporting that was becoming the norm at newspapers such
as the New York Times. And without a doubt the media were capable of
great and grave political influence, as Hearst demonstrated. So certainly
the press was helped on the whole financially rather that hurt by the
changes.
Yet for those engaged in politics, neither Hearst, Pulitzer, Ochs,
nor their lesser known contemporaries could provide the necessary

93
Theda Skocpol, “How Americans Became Civic,” in Theda Skocpol and Morris
P. Fiorina, eds., Civic Engagement in American Democracy (Washington, D.C.: Brook-
ings Institution and Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp. 27–80.
94
Ibid.; Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
95 96
Wiebe, The Search for Order. Cook,Governing with the News.

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