The new civic media marketplace – and what it means for progressive messaging

Before we can determine how to devise effective progressive messaging, we need to understand the ecosystem through which these messages must travel. Laura Quinn, Founder and President of Catalist, surveys the landscape, outlining the key features of the civic media marketplace as it exists today, and how it is likely to develop in future.

Grasping the tactical deficiencies (and opportunities) that confront us in delivering messages – or indeed being heard at all – has never been more critical. In this way, we can identify the building blocks for modern media strategies and investment.

Recent election experiences illustrate how the media marketplace has transformed from the 20th to the 21st century, and why this demands a new investment approach.

Let’s start with the facts

In the US, around 19 million Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 did not vote in 2024. Kamala Harris received 6.3 million fewer votes than Biden, indicating more “sit down” than switch. The good news is that the drop-off was slightly lower in battleground states, where Harris outperformed Biden’s 2020 numbers with voters over 40. The $1 billion+ spent on broadcast ads there, seen mainly by older voters, appears to have helped. The bad news is that the “sit down” was concentrated among voters under 40, regardless of race.

Why? Post-election research shows these voters relied much more on social media than on traditional news or ads. Afterward, they had very low recall of what Harris and the Democrats said, often describing her in the same terms used by Trump and his allies. Whatever the strengths or weaknesses of Democratic messaging, information from the right reached under-40 voters earlier, in greater volume, and spread more widely through digital culture and entertainment.

This points to a 2024 tactical delivery problem in the expanding digital and social media marketplace, as legacy media continues to shrink. Social media-first consumers will likely include nearly everyone under 45 by the next presidential election, then under 50 in the following cycle, and so on.

Outside of the US, the shift away from traditional news sources has been less sharp, but social media use for news is still rising. In the UK and France, for example, about a fifth of people now use social media as their primary news source compared to well below 10% a decade ago.

A 2025 European Parliament survey found that around 6 in 10 (59%) people use digital sources other than mainstream media (such as social media, video or streaming platforms, blogs, and online news portals) to follow content on social and political current affairs on a daily basis. Recent evidence suggests that, globally, dependence on social media and video networks for news is highest among younger groups: 44% of 18 to 24-year-olds and 38% of 25 to 34-year-olds say these are their main sources of news, according to Reuters Institute.

The age of consensus content

People in the US and Europe have always spent a large part of their day with media – that hasn’t changed. In the past, though, shelf space in broadcast and print was very limited and expensive, so owners reserved it for content with mass, rather than niche, appeal. As a result, polarizing subjects like politics and religion were confined to the margins (less than 10% of media space devoted to news), and to periodic bursts of paid political ads. Entertainment programming (about 90% of media space) was largely off-limits to politics.

Production was also costly, leaving a small group of producers, editors, and network owners to create or select most content, which was then distributed through local outlets. Political messaging was shaped into these hubs’ news programs by press offices and into paid ads by agencies. Conservative and progressive practitioners became similarly skilled and held roughly equal purchasing power, commanding comparable shelf space to advance their ideas.

A media sphere turned upside down

In the 21st century, the structure and incentives of the marketplace have changed, and the advantage has been with those who adapted quickest.

Now media shelf space is unlimited and production is cheap. There are few true mass-appeal products – even the biggest social media creators draw only a few million viewers, not mass audiences. Success now depends on finding and holding a niche. Polarizing, even tribal, content is especially effective at doing so, and regulation is minimal. As a result, entertainment, sports, and cultural media are wide open to conspiracy, scams, and political vitriol.

Outrage-driven enterprises – many of them commercial – have stormed into that space, while progressive narratives have remained largely confined to the margins of mainstream news and paid political ads.

Today, instead of top-down curators, we see a bottom-up flow, starting with individual social media creators. Production of content is democratized – creating an ocean of content. Even mainstream media brands are thrown into this sea – mere plankton alongside the TikTokers, Substackers, meme streams, and everything else.

But while shelf space is unlimited, brain space is not, making getting attention the new imperative.

The new kings of content

Although content production has been democratized, the new attention marketplace is not a merit-based system. Occasionally, a piece of content will go viral organically. But, increasingly, amplifiers (creator agencies, owned digital news brands, orchestrated meme accounts, and networked digital culture brands) play a major role. These enterprises, mostly organized as commercial businesses, act like accelerants thrown on brush fires. On the right, there are a lot of them, including Breitbart and Turning Point in the US (both of which have now set up branches in Europe).

Then, there are owned “culture” shows that are built around “persistent audiences” that consistently gather around interests such as sports, fashion, gaming, and crypto. The hosts of these shows are often more like avatars for their audience than expert anchors or celebrities.

Using their established, algorithmically recognized brands, amplifiers pull strategic narratives up out of the sea of social media, which are then adopted and spread broadly by these audience-centric “culture” shows. In this way, these strategically chosen narratives reach new audiences that rarely see legacy news programs or political ads.

When multiple shows reaching different niche audiences are networked, their aggregated niche audiences combine to better generate revenue and financial sustainability – as well as mass influence.

The social media tech platforms take a slice of revenue from every level of this new media marketplace while pretending to be hands-off delivery pipelines. Sharing pennies with creators, they advantage the brands and networks that aggregate the most cumulative attention and thereby drive the most revenue. In addition, nearly every platform owner quietly turns their algorithmic knobs to favor their own influence and interests.

Actors hostile to democracy and progressive values have been the first beneficiaries of these changes. In the US, MAGA-allied political propagandists, hucksters, and zealots have acquired, built, and now own digital media enterprises at every level. These serve as interlocking gears that are adapted to – and exploit – the new media marketplace dynamics. Their investments in still-emerging digital distribution and production assets seek to cement a communication advantage.

New dynamics mean new strategies

In the US especially, ad campaigns remain central to progressive communications strategies. In the past, the candidate that spent the most on ads had a clear advantage. But despite Democrats outspending opponents in recent cycles, results haven’t followed. While those over 40 are generally receptive to ads, younger voters are much more advertising adverse (perhaps because of having the option to swipe or scroll away). Voters under 40 seem rather to absorb information that is embedded in, not just adjacent to, the social media conversations and digital programs they follow. Further, the Harris campaign’s $1 billion+ ad spend left no media infrastructure in place to maintain connection and ongoing conversation with the public outside of election sprints.

Many argue that this new media marketplace puts progressives at a disadvantage by design, with algorithms tuned to spread lies and hate. Research shows that lies and hate fit inside a larger algorithmic attention preference favoring “surprise” above all else. Conventional wisdom and stale talking points are, perhaps, the greatest algorithmic disadvantage.

The structural transformation of the media marketplace has fundamentally changed how information spreads. The means and methods of civic communication have consequently evolved, and first-mover advantage in the digital realm has been with Trump and his allies.

Understanding and harnessing these new dynamics is crucial for anyone interested in seeing their arguments and values – new or old, left or right – advanced and adopted.