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Radio, for instance, has often been blamed for the rise of Hitler. But his hysterical ranting did not convert millions of happy democrats into fascists. He spoke to an angry audience embittered by Germany’s failure in the First World War, by a ruinous level of inflation, and by the perceived unfairness of the peace treaty the victors had imposed. Germans felt cheated, which made them listen to Hitler when he promised to give them the revenge they wanted.

As movies became popular in the first half of the 20th century they were perceived as a threat to public morals. Censorship boards were set up all over North America to protect the masses from sexual stimulation. A Catholic organization, the National Legion of Decency, tried with some success to regulate the contents of Hollywood movies. The film studios, terrified by the thought of a Catholic boycott of their movies, fell into line. They not only eliminated sexually explicit scenes but also banned certain conceivably dangerous words; a famous example was “virgin,” which could not be uttered in an American film till 1953. It was many years before the era of the censors ended. No one ever established that movies had shaped sexuality; the birth-control pill probably played a larger role.

Photo by AP Photo/William J. Smith, File

In 1961, president John Kennedy’s new chairman of the federal communications commission, Newton Minow, gave a speech about network TV, installing in the American language his appalled description of its content as “a vast wasteland.” For years newspapers loved to quote that mantra, but the size of the audience showed no signs of declining. In fact, television didn’t radically change until the appearance of a new development, cable TV.

The worry about social media reminded me of something Margaret Atwood said recently while appearing on a panel at the Vancouver Writers Festival. The panel moderator asked her a question: “I think some of us who are politically active, want to know: Is now the time to be very, very worried?” Atwood replied with a question: “When was the time not to be very, very worried?”

robert.fulford@utoronto.ca