Then, technology crashed the nuance-happy party. “By the 1920′s, radio broadcasts had replaced mass meetings and all-day orations,” writes Mark Lawrence Kornbluh, in his historical account of why American voter turnout plummeted from a high of +80 percent in the late 19th century to its dismally low numbers today. “As the role of voters became increasingly passive, it is little wonder that their enthusiasm for electoral politics waned.” Radio inflamed a subtle, yet revolutionary new feature of political discussion: word count limits. Hourly broadcast rates were expensive, and spotty coverage meant speeches had to be replicated by oratorical monks for each local network

How Technology Destroyed The Once Substantive Presidential Debate | TechCrunch Monday, March 3, 2014 @ 10:38pm