ACROSS THE WORLD, the reputation of elites and their institutions is in free fall. A flood of online information has given the public unprecedented access to elite individuals in politics, media, academia, science, business, and an array of other fields. Thanks to tools like social media, the activist public has greater proximity to its supposed mandarin class than ever before. What this newfound intimacy has revealed has not always been flattering. Many of those who had been held up as elites in their fields have, upon closer examination by the public, been revealed as mediocre, incompetent, buffoonish, and, in some cases, possibly unhinged. At the same time, the public, for all its passion, has also revealed itself to be vulnerable to conspiracy theories, disinformation, and outbreaks of hysteria.
In 2014, a former CIA media analyst named Martin Gurri published “The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium.” Gurri had spent his career analyzing the global information environment and could see that something major was ahead. “The Revolt of the Public” predicted that the information revolution unleashed by the internet would end up destabilizing politics and institutions around the world, perhaps for decades to come. A flood of new online information — along with a series of failed wars and financial crises — would conspire to bleed the legitimacy of elite institutions and their representatives in the eyes of the public, likely beyond repair.
Events since the book was first released have made it appear prophetic. This past December, “The Revolt of the Public” was republished with a new chapter, reflecting on the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom.
Below is an interview with Gurri about the consequences of the information revolution on the relationship between elites and the public. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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