Institutions, Meet the Simulation
The algorithmic funhouse mirror we call the “Simulation” has rewired how information and trust flow between individuals, communities, and institutions. With confidence in traditional media and civic institutions at historic lows, practitioners face a pressing question: how can we sustain an informed, engaged public in an era ruled by algorithms, influencers, and AI?
Most commentary on digital media’s civic impact fixates on its most recognizable figures: Joe Rogan, Alex Cooper, Dave Portnoy, and other “Attention Aristocrats.” These personalities matter: they have real agenda-setting power, reach, and cultural influence. But focusing disproportionately on these online celebrities mistakes the Simulation for an online remake of broadcast media: hierarchical, top-down, and centralized around a relatively small group of dominant voices.
That view misses the deeper transformation. The internet hasn’t simply replaced legacy elites with alternative media elites (though it has certainly done that); it has collapsed one-way hierarchies and replaced them with participatory networks. Influence no longer flows only from declarations at the top but from the interactive, distributed conversations of millions of people engaging with each other.
This new reality has created an entirely different architecture of legitimacy. In their must-read report titled For Expertise to Matter, Nonpartisan Institutions Need New Communications Strategies, the scholars Renée DiResta and Rachel Kleinfeld capture this new reality and what it means when it comes to questions of authority and legitimacy:
“Public attention flows through a far more diffuse, competitive ecosystem—one where influence is shaped by networks rather than hierarchies. The old gatekeepers have been replaced by new ones: algorithms that curate content, high-follower social media accounts that influence what goes viral, and deeply engaged niche creators who enjoy immense legitimacy within their communities. The newly influential are not simply broadcasters at the top of a different hierarchical order—they determine what content matters in conjunction with active, participating audiences. Legitimacy is now conferred on those who master resonance, immediacy, emotional connection, and authenticity.”
Authority has migrated from institutionally-bestowed credentials to human signals of sincerity, proximity, and emotional resonance. In his book Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe, the cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier argues that humans evolved “open vigilance mechanisms” to remain receptive to useful information while filtering out deception. Despite fears of mass gullibility, propaganda rarely works unless it reinforces pre-existing beliefs or comes from trusted messengers.
Inside the Simulation, these vigilance mechanisms are constantly at work. We scan the faces and voices we encounter in our feeds for signs of honesty, relatability, and shared values — not institutional seals of approval. In other words, the same cues we evolved to value in real-life face-to-face interactions are now applied in our endless feeds of online personalities. This makes manipulation possible — “Parasocial Propagandists” thrive on exploiting these trust signals — but it leaves distant, faceless institutions at a structural disadvantage against personalities perceived as proximal and authentic.
As DiResta and Kleinfeld note, this dynamic extends far beyond the mega-influencers who are today’s Attention Aristocrats. Niche creators with small but loyal audiences derive influence not from scale but from intimacy. Their value lies in proximity: recording from bedrooms, narrating daily routines, riffing in real time. Research shows that, due to the strong parasocial bonds audiences form with these smaller creators, they can rival or even surpass celebrity influencers when it comes to their ability to influence or persuade their audiences, particularly when it comes to consumer behavior. Authority in this context is borrowed not from status but from perceived sincerity and proximity to one’s audience. In the context of civic life, that same intimacy translates into credibility and community influence.
Yet many civic organizations and institutions remain trapped in an outdated playbook with diminishing democratic returns: risk-averse, message-controlled, hesitant to embrace the messy, unscripted style of organic engagement. As DiResta and Kleinfeld warn,
“Content creators may reach audiences through humor, lifestyle, or community — but over time, they also transmit values, narratives, and political frames. For institutions that seek to shape public understanding, ignoring these figures as unserious is no longer viable. They are already shaping the public conversation.”
Despite this, too many institutions default to buying what we call “commodity attention” in the form of paid ad placements across social media platforms, websites, or connected TV services. The appeal is obvious: ads offer control. Every word can be tested, every image perfected, all without wading into unpredictable and often messy organic online conversations.
But this trade-off has costs. It hands the hard work of communication to platform gatekeepers, relegates civic messaging to “Sponsored Content” that audiences instinctively tend to discount (see lots of research), and reduces democratic engagement to a transactional pay-to-play exercise — more rent-seeking than relationship-building.
Unlike ads, organic media (what we call “premium attention”) resists this granular degree of control. It is messy, iterative, prone to human error, and dependent on opaque algorithms and audiences to gain exposure rather than institutional dictates and pay-to-play fast lanes. But precisely because of its unpredictability, it carries greater weight. Audiences trust what feels unscripted. To succeed, civic practitioners must embrace this messiness: tolerate failure, experiment relentlessly, and prioritize long-term partnerships with creators and communities. Avoiding this space leaves a vacuum for faster-paced, less scrupulous actors to fill — even when their motives and impacts corrode democracy.
The rise of the Simulation demands a new approach to civic storytelling. In our view, the path forward will require pro-democracy innovators “embedding civic substance in the language, aesthetics, and emotional cues of every niche community online.” We emphatically agree with DiResta and Kleinfeld that, for democracy to survive the algorithmic internet, institutions must make a concerted effort to meet people where trust already lives: in the creators, communities, and conversations of the networked public. This requires humility, creativity, and risk-taking. Authority will not be restored by doubling down on credentials and polish. It will only be rebuilt once institutional representatives and civic practitioners show up — authentically, consistently, and in conversation with a public already talking to itself.