Polities

Polity: a political organization, a specific form of political organization or a politically organized unit. Or the form or constitution of a politically organized unit or religious denomination. ¹

Polity: a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations and have the capacity to mobilize resources. ²

In this article “Polities” is used in the context of any unit working to shape opinion in a way that changes the perception and practice of the greater organization. This unit could be as small as an individual but usually has the power of influence through the appearance of numbers. Think civic groups influencing a city, political groups or lobbyists influencing state or federal, social media influencers changing public perception on Climate Change, Racism, Pandemics, Human Trafficking or which cell phone is best.

While we readily see examples of polities – groups with agendas – in history before the Twentieth Century it becomes less obvious but no less impactful with contemporary times. In earlier ages, the groups that drove civilization were small and often limited to royalty, military or religious leaders who shaped civilization by their positional dictates. Influence was more direct and less subtle than in recent times. In the ancient world, the monarch was either in position by heredity or by taking power by force of arms. Subtlety was not a concern as force was the main prerequisite for staying in the position of leadership while the populace was unorganized in any way that could effectively oppose the leader without fear of death.

It was Aristotle in his Politics who defined³ the first form of organizational governing was kingship which he referred to as divine in origin but which had the counterpart of tyranny where the king rules for his own benefit and irrespective of the welfare of the ruled. What begins as beneficial devolves into that which is disadvantageous for the population; while the larger population greatly outnumbers the singular leader, his authority is absolute and his edict is enforced. There could be benefits such as order or social systems but personal well-being is not in focus. The hereditary nature of succession tends to favor following leadership will be aristocratic – being of a lineage or class which limits leadership to a select group.

Aristotle observed that eventually a class of leadership would coalesce around the leader and become influential to the point of becoming a leadership group. This was an oligarchy where an elite group not genetically related to the leader becomes a leading class and wields authority and influence by holding the offices of leadership. He then postulated that democracy could arise where the population would have the power to dictate the actions of those who lead.

To flesh out the theory, early Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations were lead by monarchs who established dynasties which would last for generations. In contemporary times, the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy while the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is ruled by an absolute monarchy.

Historical oligarchs date back to the ancient Greeks who through the ages used several forms of polity to lead their civilizations but in the early years wealth and power constituted and dictated the nature and leadership group in Sparta and Athens. While the world saw several ages with oligarchies, they seldom endure as eventually a ruling member will become dominate and sharing of leadership will cease. Marx and Engels said that no matter the form of government and especially if capitalistic, an oligarchy of wealthy capitalists would dominate the function of the governing unit. In U.S. history, the Constitution was the creation of wealthy landowners and in later generations, industrialists, robber barons and financiers shaped the flow of governmental decisions rather than the masses.

Aristotle did not favor democracy as the “best” governing model. Democracy is by nature the rule of the majority and he did not believe the masses always did what was in their own best interests. He thought that a polity consisting of constitutional oligarchy and democracy would be must functional (philosophers seldom make grand value judgments of “best”). His determinations were made from his experience as a Macedonian living most of his life in Athens. While he had been tutor to Alexander (before he was ‘the Great’), he was a ‘resident alien’ and was not allowed to even own property in Athens. Citizenship in Athens was limited to a minority of adult males who met strict criteria: freeborn male, both parents citizens of Athens, over 18 years of age, completed military service and without legal transgressions. Having non-citizen of Athens parents excluded him for life. His ranking of forms of government from more favorable to unfavorable was Monarchy, Aristocracy, Polity, Democracy, Oligarchy, Tyranny and it was his judgment that each had weaknesses but the most favorable would be those who knew what was best for the masses to have the consideration of favor by the masses.

With this background, look to more recent times and how leadership – whether governmental, societal or cultural – shapes or influences the masses.

While there are those who propose that former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was the original media influencer, and we’ve already alluded to those leaders of forms of government who dictated the course of nations, who changed the way the masses thought about issues enough that the masses were moved to change their lives? Beyond the obvious founders of the religions mentioned in the Faith article, give attention to the following influencers and the various medias that were used to influence:

Darius I’s ascension to the Persian throne, c. 522 BC, was memorialized by his tribute to himself carved into a cliffside near Kermanshah in western Iran. The inscriptions tout his pedigree, rise, prowess in battles and reign to all who passed by. Much as the monuments in Egypt, it was testament to the worthiness of the monarch.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, philosopher and writer who used his gift of oration to sway not only Roman courts for his clients but also was able to persuade the Roman Senate to overcome a conspiracy against the Republic. His media was moving speeches to the masses and rousing mass support for the Republic.

While the invention of the printing press in the 15^th Century made possible the spread of ideas and edicts, it was especially useful to the Reformation leaders in spreading their message in both a repeatable and novel way.

During the Age of Exploration and then the Colonization, print became the way of interesting populations about trade and the mysterious regions beyond. Many of the colonial powers used print media to create a view of the motherland that was benevolent toward the colonies which was not always an accurate representation. (see article under Optics<Kingdoms<Orient on India)

Abraham Lincoln focused America when he gave a lightly attended speech at the dedication of a graveyard for those dying in the Civil War. Though brief and quickly prepared, the Gettysburg Address was reprinted across the Union and served to unify the North. Print media.

Both the Germans and the British used print media to persuade their populations of the justness of their causes and to get the population to support with their lives and resources the leaders’ intentions. Both printed newspapers and gazettes to convince the other side’s populace that all was lost and surrender was the only reasonable response besides rebellion against the ‘immoral’ government of the other side. In 1917, the U.S. Wilson administration also established its own Committee on Public Information to shift support from the isolationist to interventionist camps. Anti-German propaganda did not necessarily focus on truth and emphasized the Hun as barbaric.

In the Nineteen-twenties, a mousy house painter injured in WWI began to work on the German psyche with the history of unfairness that his country had endured before, during and after the War. When his followers gained control through the Reichstag elections in 1933, one of his first acts was to create the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda with its minister being Joseph Goebbels who was given power over all German media and creative arts. With control over press, literature, film, theater, radio and even music, they were able to give the populace a narrative of their own creation with any public media of opposition. Goebbels was direct in his intent and method when in a film about his quest stated, “…that propaganda was most effective when its recipients were unaware they were consuming it.” His operation focused first on changing the way the populace felt about themselves (oppressed by the rest of Europe and denied what was their birthright), the way they saw national history and their rightful place in the world. He then created nationalistic media to support the perception of their homeland in the midst of lesser peoples. Within a couple years of becoming Minister of the RMVP, he had established a strict censorship banning all content from the German media that did not agree with the agenda of the Reich. By the beginning of military movements outside of Germany, the Reich had established a new mindset within Germany that supported what the majority of the populace would not have agreed to ten years earlier. Hitler was the first political leader to use all media to marshal a nation to a willful challenge of the rest of the world.

Winston Churchill rallied the British citizenry during the darkest hours of World War II with his vehement and decisive speeches over the radio while England was under bombardment and was standing somewhat alone in Europe against the Axis powers. Radio was his media. But his “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” which was repeated through his Prime Ministry came from his first speech to the House of Commons as PM on May 13, 1940. The idea gripped the nation and drove the movement against the Axis.

Franklin Roosevelt had his fireside chats with the world audience during the War but his most enduring phrase and that which became the basis for the movement of the United States out of the Great Depression, came from his 1933 inauguration, “… let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to bear is fear itself…”.

While Franklin Roosevelt had made a television appearance at the 1939 World’s Fair and Harry Truman had the first paid political advertisement on TV in 1949, Dwight Eisenhower was the first U.S. president to embrace television to the point of admitting it into his press conferences.

John Kennedy was the first American president to fully use television to create a new view of the U.S. Kennedy began his national prominence as the Hearst newspaper syndicate’s reporter in Berlin (1945) with a byline in Hearst’s national papers. When his older brother died, John was tapped to be the Kennedy standard-bearer for a seat in the House and then the Senate. His Pulitzer Prize winning book, 1956’s Profiles in Courage positioned him for more and he presented himself well during the 1960 debates which were the first successful use of that media on a national stage. John had been inaugurated with color TV coverage and continued to be before the public in person and on live TV. Once in the White House, he used the media at every opportunity and communicated more directly with the American public than any earlier president had been able to do – his first new conference was held five days after his inauguration. His wife, Jackie, had already been elevated to celebrity status by giving birth to a son, John Jr., two weeks after the election. She was known for her style and fashion as a Congressman’s wife. As First Lady, she made historic restoration of the White House her cause and gave a television tour of the White House to the American public early in 1962. The Peace Corps which had been proposed on a college campus late in the campaign became an entity in March 1961 again in 1962 he addressed the nation on TV when he announced the blockade of Cuba against the import of Russian missiles. His speech, May 25, 1961, announcing the goal of placing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade was television magic which was fulfilled in 1969. Jack’s popularity continued to rise with the June 19, 1963 release of the movie PT-109 which dramatized his WW II service as commander of a patrol torpedo boat in the South Pacific. Later that year, November 22, 1963, his was the first U.S. presidential assassination to be televised live with almost non-stop coverage through the funeral the following week. Kennedy set the standard for media-influencing by presidents that followed with the appearance of openness, spontaneity, wholesomeness and genuineness. Even if it wasn’t quite completely everything.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 became the ultimate focusing point of what became the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. and caused a generation to begin changing both attitudes and constitutional law for generations to come. One of the most repeated messages using the original mass gathering and then radio, print, television and film reels to drive change.

DIGITAL AGE

Up until the Digital Age, creating and driving any polity required power, position, authority or finance but the Digital Age and Social Media for the masses changed that dramatically. While earlier examples were mostly directed towards a particular political purpose or goal, the use of media available to the masses meant that almost anyone with internet access could try to influence the public perception on any issue of importance to that person. Tailoring the message toward a particular audience or segment of the population become much more readily available if the presenter understood the basics of media optics. Content did not necessarily matter as much as the optics of the presentation, the seemliness of what was being put forth. If it appeared to be true or if it appeared to be favorable or if it could become popular, the presentation was more likely to be accepted by a larger audience.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media platforms began in 1960 with the University of Illinois PLATO system which allowed the creation of online message forums and chat rooms. This spread beyond that system in less than ten years with the innovations allowed via ARPANET in 1969 which morphed into the Internet of the 1990s. Electronic bulletin boards which first were manifested in 1973 bloomed into CompuServe, AOL and other BBSs before the end of that decade. In 1991, the introduction of hypertext (HTML) fostered the World Wide Web (www.*.com) which made the internet more WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and graphically rather than code-apparent. SixDegrees.com was not based in the anonymous secrecy of earlier sites and encouraged people to connect using their real identities with others in many different yet possibly related relationships.

Several platforms blossomed by the early 2000s with Facebook (2004) entering and eventually dominating the personal media market and then became a connection across all areas of society. At the end of the fourth quarter 2024, Facebook was estimated to have 3.065 billion monthly active users (MAU). YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, WhatsApp and others also are often used by billions of those same monthly active users. And it is not a United States phenomenon with India having over 350 million users, U.S. 194 million, Indonesia 115 million, Brazil 110 million… even Bangladesh has over 55 million MAUs.⁴

To create an effective campaign targeted at the demographics he intended to reach to win the presidential election of 2008, Barack Obama became the first major candidate to utilize social media to create the optics he wanted to present to engage the donors and supporters of his candidacy. Having won the election, he continued to use social media to effectively raise support for his legislative agenda; he continued to use social media after leaving the office of President and by the end of 2019 was the most-followed person on Twitter. No matter what the actual content of his Presidency may have been, he had the optics of being the most open, accessible, communicative president ever which went far in fostering the groundswell acceptance of his social agenda by the masses.

MEDIA INFLUENCERS

As mentioned earlier, social media via the internet opened up the possibility of creation of polities to anyone who was so inclined. Less than twenty years after the creation of Facebook, there are Social Media Influencers who earn their living solely by using social media to create and drive followers of their perceptions and recommendations as to what is best for the follower’s life. While some are entertainers or celebrities who use their popularity to crossover into lifestyle influencers, many of the largest in terms of followers or income are unknowns apart from the mass of followers they have garnered. Many influencers are lifestyle gurus who tout travel, activities, home trends while others key in on finance, health, family or how to make a fortune. There are unlimited possibilities for improving one’s life situation if you can only find, connect and practice what the influencer is pitching. Also, some espouse a particular view of history, world affairs, ethics or ethnicity. Most have appealing and well-constructed, persuasive sites convincing followers of the rightness of how theirs is the one thing you need to make your life worthwhile.

Many of the influencers use pseudo-science or authority to validate the rightness. Doctors of Philosophy using the “Dr.” title to verify the science of a medical “breakthrough” without revealing the lack of medical training. Or those with exceptional genetics saying that some substance or practice will give you the same results as heredity gave them. Some simply are exceptional pitchmen who are convincing in sincerity and approach, ensuring they really care about your well-being more than power, position or money. Some even use the blurring of a character they’ve acted as making them credible when that has no relationship to their validity or authentic-ness as a spokesperson.

Some credit First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) as the first social media influencer who built upon her popularity as Franklin’s First Lady into the personal brand of the world’s most trustworthy woman. Her influence went far beyond government or politics. Jackie Kennedy had a similar influence and social media embraced Hillary Clinton’s It Takes a Village both as a book and philosophy of governmental involvement in everyday life.

Influencer Marketing has become a new commerce stream worldwide with both individuals branding themselves and marketing their thoughts to corporations employing them to drive market share to their products. The power of successful social media influencers may well make a product line successful simply by the influencer wearing, using or mentioning a product. Claims do not have to be validated before a pitch is successful but by having the endorsement of an influencer and then the acceptance of masses of followers with the forthcoming rave reviews of agreement on the rightness of the endorsement, validity comes from the acceptance rather than any truth of worthiness. According to the Wikipedia article “Influencer”,

“… in 2023, 27 million people were paid content creators with 12 million having that as their full-time profession.”

Influencers often are paid by the market effectiveness of their endorsement of a company or product or practice without ever disclosing that payment to their followers. Marketing was once a direct “Buy our product” but is much less transparent when funneled through an influencer who seems to have nothing more than the well-being of their followers in mind and are recommending as a ‘friend’. Yet, mega-influencers with over a million followers may earn five-to-six figures per post depending upon the segment of the market in which they are involved. Cristiano Ronaldo is alleged to average over $3 million per post. For those unaware, he is a forty-year-old Portuguese professional footballer (soccer to uninformed) known as CR7 to fans and believed to be one of the best all-time players in the world’s most popular sport. Not only the highest goal scorer (+900), he is also the first footballer to reach $1 billion in earnings from his career.⁵

In 2018 at age 15, Greta Thunberg began what was to become one of the most meteoric rises as influencer on the world stage. She had previously convinced her parents to make lifestyle changes reducing the family’s carbon footprint on the environment but in August, skipped school in Stockholm, Sweden and went to protest outside the Swedish parliament until after elections. Her drive was to get stronger consideration for action on climate change legislation. By signage and flyers, she drove attention to this issue and after the elections, continued and demonstrated weekly. She encouraged viewers to post cell phone video of her strike on social media and soon other students joined her demanding Sweden comply with the Paris Climate Accords. By 2019, the student movement claimed millions of student participants weekly worldwide. Her “How Dare You” speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit 2019 over the perceived indifference to climate change eventually grew to include other world issues which she felt were not being expeditiously resolved. Her ability to create polity made her one of the most recognizable voices and by 2019 she was named to Time’s 100 Most Influential People list, their Person of the Year and Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women with even mentions for the Nobel Peace Prize. All of this exposure began with a photo post on Instagram and Twitter of her strike’s first day and all the social media that followed and took up her cause. Others who had been working on the climate change lack of meaningful action took up her cause using the attention she drew to move forward their agendas. Activism, publicity, changing perception, moving media, moving action. Polity.

FOOTNOTES:

¹ “Polity.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polity Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.
² Ferguson, Yale; Richard W. Mansbach Mansbach, Richard W. (1996). “Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change”. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.
(quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polity )
³ https://intellectualtakeout.org/2023/03/aristotle-6-forms-of-government/
⁴ https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/
⁵ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristiano_Ronaldo

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