Axios

We always assumed technology and the naked transparency of social media would feed people’s taste for freedom and thirst for democracy. Right now, that assumption looks flawed -- technology might actually solidify the standing of despots and provide them with a new way to exert their power. Ian Bremmer — political scientist, president and founder of Eurasia Group, and author of "Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism" — recently unpacked this issue in a letter to clients.

Changes in decades-old broadcasting rules, combined with new types of competition in news and entertainment, are creating a drama-filled free-for-all as local US broadcasters consolidate. Consolidation will inevitably mean that fewer voices reach more people, but some in the industry argue it's the only way local broadcasting will be able to compete with big tech. Of all TV news products, local television still has the largest audience by far compared to national and cable. But it's also been hit with the greatest decline among the three types of traditional TV.

The Chinese government certainly has the ability to pursue an online political disinformation campaign directed at foreign elections — but hasn’t yet because it favors long-term thinking over Russia’s scorched-earth foreign policy, experts said. Researchers note that China could turn its sights on the US if it wanted to. “The question for me and some other researchers is: will they make that jump more aggressively to the English language space in the more heavy-handed manipulation sense?

An explosion of new digital options for kids' entertainment has pulled children's attention away from live TV to instant, on-demand programming, bringing with it new challenges for producers, policymakers and parents. TV networks are trying to modernize in order to keep up with kids' viewing habits. And a recent Federal Communications Commission proposal would relax kids' TV rules to let traditional broadcasters compete with digital channels, like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube, that do not have to follow those rules.