Peter LaMotte, who heads Washington's Levick Communications' digital practice, describes this kind of preemptive strike as "controlled detonation." "By setting off the bomb in a safe location, or ideally multiple different locations the damage is both diluted and distributed," LaMotte said. "In real life, if a reporter is doing a hatchet job on your client, the best thing to do is break up the story into as many pieces as possible give each piece to a different sympathetic reporter, prior to the filing of the larger hostile story."

And then there's that assassination plotline I mentioned before. With President Fitzgerald "Fitz" Grant (Tony Goldwyn) comatose from a murder attempt against him, the villainous hyper-conservative VP played by Kate Burton is itching to succeed the presidency. To keep the executive reins out of her clutches, the show hatches another unbelievable scheme. Using a forged signature from the first lady (Bellamy Young) on an official document and a careful, concentrated media blitz, Olivia and the chief of staff make it look as though the president is awake and leading the country from his hospital room. It works. While Olivia's plan isn't necessarily explicit about using the web, it does reflect an understanding that gullibility and virality go hand in hand these days more than ever.

Crisis managers, like Washington's Eric Dezenhall, who previously worked for the Reagan Administration as a communications strategist, have seen how blurred the distinction between fact and fiction can become online. "Anyone converting thoughts into blogs or comments carries the proxy of authority, and even though everyone claims not to believe what they read online, there is nothing in my experience to contradict the reality that people, at least at some level, do believe what they read online," Dezenhall said by email.

The show also nails how the digital age shapes relationships out of the public spotlight. A recent plot involving an intelligence officer played by Scott Foley, hired by the president to set up spy cams for a round-the-clock live feed of the inside of Olivia's apartment, is reminiscent of the neurotic diligence of Claire Danes's character in Homeland, which itself feels close to 24. (It helps that the two series share producers.) But those shows are more about the hardware: How much money, in the form of technology, can we use in the fight against terrorism? Shonda Rhimes's show is more interested in the emotional effects of tech. When the president sends operatives to spy on Olivia, for example, it isn't to keep tabs on her occasionally no-good clients; it's so that their romantic link is never broken. Though Fitz and Olivia are physically separated, they're connected by streaming sound and videos. It takes the idea of long-distance relationships subsisting over Skype calls and Facebook stalking of exes and brings them to newly creepy, obsessive heights.