In an increasingly globalized and hyper-connected world, it's extremely easy for a piece of news to bounce thousands of times from one point to another across the planet via the web , eventually acquiring a sort of authoritative credibility. According to Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan , technological innovation is capable of bringing about more or less significant change in the societies where it occurs and spreads. The internet and its platforms initially had the merit of making it possible to compare news and cultural products from nearly all places and cultures, thus escaping an era and a type of information manipulated by the ideology that characterized the collective imagination of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The nuclear arms race
Over the past two hundred years, the political and economic debate between capitalism and socialism has been interrupted by the rise of fascism in Europe and Asia, and the resulting wars. The invention of weapons of mass destruction , initially used only on the battlefield, later became the protagonists of an all-out war in cities, involving the civilian population. News of the atomic bomb, which before Hiroshima and Nagasaki was taken lightly, quickly spread around the world and led to the end of the Second World War: a bomb dropped from an airplane at an altitude of miles capable of wiping out entire cities and populations. The territories occupied by NATO in the West and by the USSR in Central and Eastern Europe became the theater of the nuclear arms race. Spectators quickly became accustomed to seeing footage of atomic tests in which islands and atolls in the Pacific Ocean, previously unique natural reserves, were bombed.
World War in the Age of Social Media
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the USSR, the thousands of atomic bombs scattered across Europe and North America faded from Western imagination during the booming economy. Interest in oil shifted the focus of conflict to the Middle East , once again involving civilians and the old powers. The alarming tone used by prominent political figures on both sides to describe and promote the distrust between the parties was very similar to that used by the press during the Cold War . After approximately 30 years of a "thaw" in relations between the United States and Russia, the latter tore up nuclear disarmament agreements, while the US declared that World War III was imminent. Whether the threats were concrete or not, the terrorism practiced by the American and Russian governments spread through social networks and affected individuals and society, altering their perception of events and security.
What future awaits us?
The Europe of rights and mutual solidarity, already shattered in its manifest intentions, has been shaken by terrorist and fanatical attacks in the heart of its capitals, while the eternal enemy on one side and the eternal ally on the other undermine the very foundations of "Fortress Europe." The future of peace within the EU, which has always been torn apart by conflicts between neighboring states, risks becoming a good intention gone bad, resurfacing all the strife and hatred that have characterized an entire era, dragging the entire world into war and misery.
René Verneau
