The last great experiment in authoritarian government became socially and financially intolerable in the early 1600s. Historians have called it the Protestant Reformation, but, actually, it was a popular uprising similar to the one that brought down the Berlin Wall and Communism.
Going into this the combination of state and religion essentially controlled the media. Book printing plus the pulpits.
Eventually, the middle classes had enough prosperity to afford their own publications. In England, the Star Chamber, under Archbishop Laud found these frustrating and banned  publications that opposed the establishment view. 
The uprising had their "newsbooks" published in Holland and smuggled them into Britain.
Their was a nasty civil war, but the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 got rid of the last of the absolutist kings.
The modern world of improving freedom and prosperity was underway. 
The internet is equivalent to society getting around state control of the media in the early 1600s.