I'm not discounting it by any means. And I know about the pamphlet era that was enabled by the invention of the printing press, and the profound effect it had on Europe. But what's the typical reach of one of those worker-owned newspapers, compared to the reach of a mass circulation newspaper?
I think you missed my point: printing at scale needs a support system and a distribution system, and that requires capital. The "age of mass, top-down communications" didn't start "in the mid 20th century", and the printing press should not be used as a counterexample to support rayiner's argument. William Randolph Hearst was born in 1863.
Worker newspapers in the US had circulations as high as 10s of thousands to almost a million during the height of national strikes during the new deal (nearly several every month).
The point is you are letting a system designed by elites to uphold elites set the boundaries. There are many forms of alternative media out there, some more popular than any billionaire owned rag.
Just expand your definition and don't let others tell you what is or isn't appropriate. Especially when it comes to political thought.
I really don't know what you are saying then because US labor movements did not distribute just pamphlets, there were truly alternative media sources out there. You're forgetting that there was a real communist, socialist, and anarchist movements for almost entire lifetimes before they were all systematically destroyed after WW2 with the help of powerful organizations like the CIO.
Add in the red scare + knee capping more leftists + academics during the 60s, 70s and you have a once massively influential independent confederate type of worker lead organizations that now amount to some moderate pundit's substack where they traded advocacy for ad dollars.
But before all this there were dual power institutions and mutual aid even going as far as providing free public education to all (who do you think taught cattle ranchers how to read in the 1880s? Then look at how quickly they took up leftist literature then writing their own).
What are you truly saying here because it just sounds like you don't know the history of labor in the US, which no shit. They don't teach this stuff anywhere, you have to purposely seek it out because neoliberals consider this type of stuff heretical.
I think you missed my point: printing at scale needs a support system and a distribution system, and that requires capital. The "age of mass, top-down communications" didn't start "in the mid 20th century", and the printing press should not be used as a counterexample to support rayiner's argument. William Randolph Hearst was born in 1863.