The idea has been percolating in my head for a while -
Many have noted the similarities with the rise of Trump in the US, and the Brexit vote in the UK. My casual reading of news about politics in Australia suggest things are also in turmoil there. Aside from all of these being English speaking countries, what they also have in common is a strong media presence from the Rupert Murdoch holdings. I would suggest that these media organs all tend to promote Mr. Murdoch’s particular blend of low-information low-brow anti-elite nativist conservatism.
It seems to me that decades of this type of messaging in these countries has fomented a base of like minded citizenry ready to storm the castle walls and throw suspicion on anyone not just like them. The result, Trump and Brexit.
So, in the spirit of nominating the person who has had the most influence on world events over the past year, I nominate Rupert Murdoch, for his decades long project of promoting his world view that is bearing fruit on the world stage.
It probably should be the puppetmaster, but it’ll be the puppet. I predict it’ll be Trump, with Clinton a close second. There’s gonna be an internal debate within Time that wants to talk about the attention magnet that is Trump, or the historicality of the first female president. In the end I think the desire for profit will overcome good judgement. Trump is influential, but mostly for one party. When Hillary Clinton wins, it will be a monumental event affecting the entire US
Murdoch mastheads are usually is low-brow because he knows his markets.
The problem with your analysis is that people just aren’t voting the way the Murdoch press are telling them.
All the Murdoch editorials in Aust called for a LIB re-elect.
I thought virtually all the UK mastheads called for REMAIN.
So if News.com is fermenting rebellion against the elites then they are the crosshairs themselves.
Shaky premise re Brexit. News Corp’s tabloid the Sun came out for Leave, while the Times was in favour of Remain. The most anti-EU British newspapers are the Daily Express and Daily Mail, neither of which is controlled by Murdoch.
The Sky News TV channel, in which Murdoch’s interests have a controlling stake, was reasonably impartial from what I saw.
The degree to which newspapers lead the opinion of their readers, rather than reflect it, is open to question, anyway:
The political scientist John Curtice says his research has led him to conclude that “yes, newspapers have smallish but noticeable effects on readers. But given now the proportion of people who read the newspapers is quite small, their ability to have any aggregate impact is much less.”
If you are talking about Time’s Person of the Year, it will almost certainly be whoever is elected president.
(Meanwhile, whatever charity ended up with the “Golden State Warriors 2016-17 NBA Champions” shirts and hats probably got a bonus as well - hundreds of thousands of Sports Illustrated “2016 Sportsman of the Year: Stephen Curry” covers. Of course, that assumes that the Cubs don’t win the World Series this year.)