Digital media an illusion of democracy

I recently finished reading The Obsolescence of the Human (Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen) by Günther Anders, a German philosopher and critical theorist known for his critique of technology and modern society.

First published in German in 1956, the book appeared in English for the first time only in 2025. It is an unsettling work. Writing in the age of television, industrial automation and the atomic bomb, Anders worried that humanity was becoming more technologically capable without becoming better able to understand, much less control, what it had created.

Seven decades later, his observations seem remarkably prescient. Quoting a tale set in his fictional land of Molussia, Anders writes: “The less people have a voice, the more they are given to look at and see.”

Anders was describing a world in which images brought distant events into people’s living rooms while decisions shaping those events remained beyond their influence. The world appeared increasingly accessible, but accessibility was not agency. He warned that images could become “stultification-devices”: representations that reveal fragments of reality while obscuring the relationships needed to understand and judge them. One could watch history unfold without having much say in its direction.

The British novelist and essayist Will Self has described our contemporary environment as one of “bi-directional digital media.” Unlike TV, which largely delivered information in one direction, digital platforms allow us to respond, publish, argue and create. We help produce the ceaseless stream of material others consume.

But the exchange runs both ways in another sense. Every interaction also tells platforms something about us. Algorithms learn what captures our attention, provokes a reaction or keeps us engaged, then tailor what we see. Our feeds are not neutral windows onto the world. They are selections shaped partly by commercial incentives to hold our attention. Anger, fear and division may prove profitable.

In March 2026, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay US$375 million in civil penalties after finding that it had misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and engaged in unfair practices affecting children. Brave New World indeed.

The implications extend beyond advertising. Cambridge Analytica exploited Facebook users’ personal data for political profiling and targeting. In 2019, following an investigation prompted by that scandal, Facebook (now Meta) agreed to pay a US$5-billion penalty for broader privacy violations. Personal data were being exploited for targeted political persuasion. What happens to democratic discourse when messages can be tailored to our behaviour and perceived vulnerabilities? Yet dismissing digital media as instruments of manipulation would be equally mistaken. Someone with a phone can challenge an official account, expose corruption or document atrocities that might otherwise remain hidden. Images of war and human suffering can cross borders before governments or established media decide what to report. Sometimes a witness’s recording is the only reason the world knows what happened. This is not an illusion of participation. It is a genuine democratic achievement.

The difficulty is what happens next. Evidence can be buried beneath counter-narratives, official denials or appeals to the supposed “complexity” of events. Complexity matters when it helps us understand; it becomes an evasion when invoked to obscure what the evidence plainly shows.

Traditional journalism is not immune. Under pressure to produce more with fewer resources, news organizations can become conduits for government statements, corporate messaging and press releases instead of independently examining their claims. The result is not necessarily “fake” news, but an abundance of stories whose origins and assumptions receive little scrutiny. Anders warned of a flood of representations; our digital world has made it a swarm of content, where repetition can masquerade as corroboration.

Democracy requires more than the opportunity to express ourselves. It requires the capacity to question authority, evaluate competing claims and influence collective decisions. Digital platforms give millions a voice, but do not distribute control over what gets heard equally. Algorithms shape visibility, commercial interests reward engagement and powerful actors compete to define what counts as newsworthy. No one controls the entire narrative, but neither are we equal participants in shaping it.

Generative AI adds another complication. Systems increasingly summarize events, interpret evidence and offer conclusions. Their benefits are considerable, but delegating interpretation makes Anders’ warning harder to ignore.

We are offered limitless opportunities to watch, react and contribute while retaining little influence over how public understanding is formed. We risk mistaking the machinery of participation for democracy itself.

“The less people have a voice, the more they are given to look at and see.” Today, we are given something more: the opportunity to comment, share and speak back. But if these activities do not translate into influence over decisions that shape our lives, have we overcome the problem Anders identified? Or have we built a more sophisticated version of it, one in which the illusion of participation substitutes for democracy itself?

Rod Lastra is an academic specialist in AI and digital innovation at the University of Manitoba’s division of extended education and a former UNESCO AI and digital transformation adviser.