Eitan Hersh, an associate professor at Tufts University has written a great book about how activists use politics called Politics is for Power. In this book he also describes an important phenomenon called political hobbyism. Political hobbyists, according to Hersh, “are people who follow the news, the latest developments on social media, and consume political information.” Chomsky described the media world consolidated power in Manufacturing Consent. Hersh talks about how the news consumer is actually complacent.
Another important point that Hersh makes about political hobbyists is to define the phenomenon as more prevalent in white communities and describe how it is political hobbyism used by different political parties.
Image: M. Kraus/Wikimedia
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