The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

“The reality that anyone with a cell phone can now presume to make, break, or fabricate the news has shaken our citadels of culture and journalism to the core.”

The ways in which technology has changed both the production and consumption of media run as a major thread through Gladstone's book. She tends to take a positive outlook on these changes and advises readers on ways to be ethical, informed consumers.

“The media machine is a delusion.”

This sentence encapsulates the central argument of Gladstone's book: the media are not a machine, controlling the minds of consumers; rather, the media are a mirror, reflecting America back to itself with some distortions. Consumers have far more agency than they believe they do in the creation and consumption of news. 

“News unites a far-flung nation.” 

Using Julius Caesar's Acta Diurna, Gladstone shows how the news historically serves to both unite a populace and inform a government that its activities are known and scrutinized by its citizens.