People are increasingly able to seek out stories and storytellers who challenge and reject views of the state scribes. People have the ability to find others who share and confirm their views of the world, bypassing the communication of the scribes. For example, people with disabilities can find each other online and organize to challenge their exclusion from positions, power, and print. Political candidates unaffiliated with the two major parties have a means to reach a larger audience. Hate groups, isolated in their own communities, can seek support from around the world.
People share stories.
They sustain each other with stories that draw from archetypal figures and forms to offer exemplary models and meaning for human life. Through these disparate online stories, the status of state scribes quite possibly can be challenged. With the end of the cold war and the beginning of a new century, U.S. news coverage of international affairs finds itself at a crossroads. For previous generations of reporters and editors, the world could be organized and explained in relation to the political, military, economic and cultural rivalry of two superpowers. As we have seen, two models have emerged.