Tony Abbott Quotes

We've had the trivialization of our politics going on ever since we had electronic media.

I understand the process of politics and the game of television.

The media are not progressive enough to let us govern. 24/7 news is the worst thing that has happened to the ability to govern.

The media have disproportionate control of the information in our society.

Whatever may be said about the power of the press, it is undeniable that it can set the entire public thinking and talking about any topic ...

Part of the mystique of blogs is their protean quality: They work both sides of the divide between politics and media, further blurring the already fuzzy distinctions between reporter, pundit, political operative, activist, and citizen.

The Fox-Trump feedback loop is unlike anything we've seen in media before.

I'd like to say I'd like to be as big as a Gwen or a Madonna, but I think those days of achieving that level are over. The media is bringing everybody down.

The thing about social media is that it is anonymous, so it can be much more vitriolic and extreme than normal media and yet it is there for everyone to see. It is kind of like electronic graffiti. The political process is accelerated and intense in a way that I don't believe it ever really has been before.

I think that that the main problem with a lot of social media stuff in terms of ratings is it's a very skewed motivation.

Part of what's changed in politics is social media and how people are receiving information.

I think that we have created a new kind of person in a way. We have created a child who will be so exposed to the media that he will be lost to his parents by the time he is 12.

I suppose I'm qualified to some degree to speak about the nature of contemporary media, as that's where I currently work. People, I think have been beyond trained - coded to not anticipate change; to think that change is implausible. Almost weaned off. It had to be a revolution bred out of us.

Donald Trump was underrated, but he understood social media and he understood reality television.

I was - in this magazine, it referred to me as "political parrot." And I thought, "That's the best you can come up with, really?" Okay, and I think it made fun of something I was wearing. But that does happen, and it happens a lot with female journalists, folks.

I think [social media] is fundamentally restructuring the whole nature of information and how it's expressed in America.

I think it's a scary sign of the times that pop culture and social media is so involved [in presidential election ], where it feels like a reality show. I have hope that the right decision will be made.

I think that we live in a world - and this is something which living in Pakistan, perhaps, has taught me - and, you know, we live in a world where there is a constant feed from social media, the news, etc., of things that can scare us. And we become so anxious because human beings are meant - are designed to be sensitized to dangerous stuff.

I think what we journalists too often do is we assume the status quo is unchangeable. I think all sorts of issues of political reform, electoral reform need more discussion than they get.

I think it's pretty common for people to get excited when they meet somebody that they know from the media.

I think the political process has degenerated into name-calling and extremism, and I think that that's unfortunate.

If you were president 50 years ago, the tragedy in Syria might not even penetrate what the American people were thinking about on a day to day basis. Today, they're seeing vivid images of a child in the aftermath of a bombing.

I think social media is a revolutionary phenomenon all in itself.

The power of the media is really the only new issue in the last 50 years, probably.

I think conspiracy theories have gotten more and more close to the mainstream because what you've got is a fragmentation of the media, where the media becomes much more polarized today, left and right.