The Planned Obsolescence of Communication (Ideas From the Book The Economic Policy of Online Media: Manufacture of Dissent, Routledge, 2024)

This article examines the emergence of a “planned obsolescence of communication” in the digital age, where information is produced, circulated, and discarded according to the economic logic of digital capitalism rather than the civic needs of democratic societies. The analysis traces how the manufacture of public opinion has shifted from traditional ideological systems—whose narratives once unified large groups through durable mythologies—to a contemporary media environment dominated by junk news, moral anger, and algorithmically curated pseudo-realities. The decline of shared truths, combined with the rise of abstract, entertainment-driven narratives, has weakened the capacity of nation-states to maintain legitimate consensus. Digital oligarchies, motivated by advertising revenue and attention-maximisation, now shape the informational order, creating conditions in which falsehood spreads more efficiently than fact, and dissent becomes a commodity rather than a democratic tool. The article situates this crisis within a broader intellectual tradition, from the MacBride Report to recent whistle-blower testimony and “The Social Dilemma” documentary, to argue that media systems increasingly function through deliberate obsolescence: Information is designed to expire, outrage is engineered for profit, and public discourse is destabilised by incessant novelty. The planned obsolescence of communication thus represents a structural threat to democracy that requires both regulatory reform and a revival of critical media research grounded in public purpose rather than commercial utility.