The Sirens' Call

The Sirens’ Call fits into a cultural lineage of media evolution, spanning from 19th-century newspapers to contemporary algorithm-driven social platforms. Hayes argues that each media development—from the penny press to television, and now to the internet—has shaped how societies prioritize and digest information. Where newsprint allowed for detailed, serialized reporting and promoted literacy, broadcast media introduced an era of short-form soundbites that privileged spectacle. Hayes then shows how social media platforms amplify this spectacle-based culture with every scroll, like, or retweet, pushing us further into an environment that favors immediacy over depth.

Hayes builds upon theories of those like Neil Postman, which warned of TV’s capacity to replace serious political discourse with entertainment. In the digital environment, the pivot to viral clips, memes, and reaction videos has accelerated this phenomenon, incentivizing creators to produce content designed for quick consumption rather than thoughtful engagement. Here, even political candidates adopt attention-grabbing tactics, leaving reasoned debate and policy overshadowed by controversy or scandal. This cultural context reveals how society’s information diet has pivoted: from the relatively slower, editorially curated front page of a newspaper to algorithmically curated social feeds that revolve around “engagement.”

By understanding the cultural arc of media—how we went from an era of in-person Lincoln—Douglas debates to a world where TikTok videos might shape elections—Hayes deems unregulated online platforms a crisis for democracy.