I disagree. The worst elements are the gatekeepers in the paranoid way they are reacting to the many-to-many model: by turns trying to limit and control it, and also to surf on it like a wave, both of which they try to achieve by means of creating panics they don't know how to control.
i would argue the two aren't mutually exclusive, I'd say what you're describing is a result of a tension between the old information system and new information system, and the hollowing out of democracy has limited the ways in which institutions can respond to the issues.
It has been the old methods that hollowed out democracy, using the old tools - pressure groups, think tanks, hidden money and influence flows, conferences. It was an old paradigm that helped it happen - neoliberalism concentrating wealth. That's the issue.