Chris Berg of the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs calls it the “outrage economy”. This is not a bad description of an environment in which a sort of cyber frenzy has descended on the public debate in the past week or so – and will not go away.Whether we like it or not, the next phase in the public discourse will be defined by the limits of cyberspace, or no limits at all in what is a largely unregulated universe.This is the world of social media – principally Twitter and Facebook – beyond the control of a mainstream that has found itself slip-sliding in an environment in which the traditional gatekeepers of what we see and hear have struggled to keep their footing.
http://www.afr.com/p/national/outrage_is_the_new_democracy_fUP37CWA1kKVcmQ5ggb1bO