Verified by 
Key points
- The worldwide shift from democracies to autocracies correlates with the rise of social media since 2004.
- To get attention, today's high-emotion media constantly repeats images of crises creating exaggerated fears.
- High-emotion media also exaggerates polarization within nations, creating unnecessary outrage among viewers.
Worldwide, since 2004, there has been a shift away from democratic governments toward autocratic governments with a strongman leader. Why is this occurring at this time in history, when the prior 60 years were dominated by countries moving away from dictators toward democracy? The following includes excerpts from my book Our New World of Adult Bullies: How to Spot Them – How to Stop Them.
The Worldwide Shift
The Bertelsman Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI) is an international report of democratic progress measuring 137 countries based on 18 factors. “The BTI is the result of the collaboration of nearly 300 country and regional experts from leading universities and think tanks worldwide.”1 In their 2022 annual report, “For the first time since 2004, our Transformation Index (BTI) counts more autocratically governed states than democracies. Among the 137 countries surveyed, only 67 are still democracies, while the number of autocracies has risen to 70.”2
Ironically, this has occurred while the world has continued to make overall progress in most areas including general health and education, longevity, and reductions in poverty, crime, and violence over the past several decades.3 Of course, there are specific areas of violence and poverty that stand out (such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza), but overall the world has made surprisingly good progress compared to the prior century. Yet something is going on worldwide. What has changed?
High Emotion Media
In today’s world, we get our news of the world condition from highly competitive media, including social media, which rely on showing extreme behavior in order to get eyeballs and clicks. For example, in 2004 Facebook got started, in 2005 YouTube began, and in 2006 Twitter and Reddit (and Apple iPhones) were launched, with algorithms that fed more and more extreme views to keep their users online.4
“The correlation of the rise of social media since 2004 with the backsliding to more primitive autocratic governments makes sense. Unlike radio and television, the internet and social media provide intense interactive communities of like-minded people who can share and reinforce each other’s extreme thoughts about outsiders—without restraint. In a sense, there are no adults in the room of many social media platforms, so the most primitive thinking can gain strength and reinforcement. This can reinforce the simple thinking and beliefs of large numbers of people. By spending many hours a day living in the fantasy world of crises, villains, and strongman heroes, it’s not surprising that many people no longer believe in the real world of democracies with leaders who can handle complexity, compromise, and collaboration.”5
In addition, modern radio, television, and visual social media—in contrast to the information provided by most newsprint, books, and mild-mannered announcers—emphasize extreme faces and extreme voices, which hook our right brains unconsciously while turning off our left brains’ logical thinking processes. For example, the amygdala (alarm center) in the right brain is particularly sensitive to “nonverbal facial expressions,” which are processed “very rapidly and below the level of consciousness.”6 And bullies have the most emotional faces and voices.
Media Repetition
Because of the ability of modern media to repeat events endlessly, our culture is often over-exposed to crises, impacting our beliefs and stress. For example, in 2001 television repeatedly broadcast the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Constant media exposure to these traumatic events “was associated with high risk for probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other negative emotions.” The fear of future terrorism that this television exposure triggered apparently caused acute stress and impacted cardiovascular health.7
A similar study after the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist bombing compared media exposure to actual presence at the bombing. “Six hours or more of daily media-based exposure to the Boston Marathon bombing (BMB) was associated with higher acute stress than was direct exposure to the BMB.”8
Polarizing Media
Unfortunately, with today’s competing media, it isn’t just a sense of crisis that is exaggerated. Polarization (creating a sense of us-against-them) is also exaggerated. People can tune in to their own favorite radio and television stations and other sources, such as podcasts, and find their own favorite celebrities or talents to feed them only what they want to hear. This means a lot of emotional repetition in isolation.
The result of this in the United States is the following, as described by Ezra Klein in his book Why We Are Polarized, when reporting on a study about how Democrats and Republicans see each other: “The more interested in politics people were, the more political media they consumed, the more mistaken they were about the other party.” He goes on to say that political reporting emphasizes outrage. “We are outraged when members of other groups threaten our group and violate our values. As such polarized media doesn’t emphasize commonalities, it weaponizes differences: it doesn’t focus on the best of the other side, it threatens you with the worst.”9
Illusory Truth Effect
Given the exaggerated fears and outrage the media produces, it’s no surprise that the most aggressive bullies would use modern media to exaggerate themselves as heroic leaders. Using the simple “illusory truth effect” (that enough repetition can make false statements feel true)10 they are able to create their desired fantasy image as the individual savior of their nations from these fantasy crises and enemies.
Conclusion
Nowadays, we are primed to think in terms of crises caused by easily identifiable villains. We are easily attracted to bullies representing themselves as heroes against these crises and villains. Yet today’s problems are much more complex than simple crises and usually need a lot of people to solve them, such as with climate change and worldwide viruses. Research into the correlation between high-emotion media and the increase in autocratic leaders would be very helpful for citizens and lawmakers. If this truly is a case of causation, not just correlation, then the potential harm to democracy and civil society makes this an urgent issue to address.
References
1. “Who we are,” Bertelsman Stiftung Transformational Index, https://bti-project.org/en/about.
2. "Trend toward authoritarian governance continues – Democracy under pressure worldwide," Bertelsman Stiftung Transformational Index, February 23, 2022, https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/topics/latest-news/2022/february/democracy-under-pressure-worldwide.
3. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Viking Penguin Press, 2011.
4. “Social Media History,” Wikipedia, accessed December 30, 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media#History.
5. Bill Eddy, Our New World of Adult Bullies: How to Spot Them – How to Stop Them, Health Communications, Inc., 2024, 225.
6. Allan Shore, Right Brain Psychotherapy, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, 222.
7. E. Alison Holman, Dana Rose Garfin, Pauline Lubens, and Roxane Cohen Silver, “Media exposure to collective trauma, mental health and functioning: Does it matter what you see?” Clinical Psychological Science, no. 1 (2020): 111-24.
8. Holman, et al, Media exposure, at 119.
9. Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized, Avid Reader Press, 2020, loc. 149 of 312, iBooks.
10. Aumyo Hassan and Sarah J. Barber, “The Effects of Repetition Frequency on the Illusory Truth Effect,” Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 6, no. 38 (2021): 1.
