The Insurrection Will Be Live Streamed: Notes Toward a Theory of Digitization
(1) The availability of digital streaming increases the political &#x27;temperature&#x27;.  Everyone at the capitol was grandstanding for the digital audience.  Look amongst the flags as the crow pushes past barricades.  See the selfie sticks.  Crazy gets clicks.<p>(2) But the availability of streaming also reduces the number of participants.  People are lazy.  If they can, they will participate from their couch rather than walk in the street.  If they can scream on twitter, and feel validated as that screaming makes news, they won&#x27;t bother to march in the streets.<p>(3) Commentators ignore the FOMO that drove mass protests in the past.  Many, especially young people, would turn out to a rally or protest not because they much cared about the subject but because they wanted to see what was happening.  They were curious.  But digitization means we all have intimate knowledge of everything in real time.  So much of the motivation for non-crazy participants, the curiosity of the masses, is gone.<p>So .. while the digitization of protest has resulted in an  increase in the number of extremists, imho we aren&#x27;t seeing the truly massive turnouts of decades past.  Those who do show are more likely to riot, but the majority will riot from behind their keyboards.  That is something very different than historical protest movements.