The exact same things happened with people on different sides of the Roman Empire.
Again, the reach is not new! Nor is the speed - it’s just before only the Right People could do it, excepting maybe AM radio.
Before that, the reach was still as far as people spoke your language - it just took longer and people relied more on hearing what you said from someone else, until the invention of the printing press. Information still spread rapidly and if anything, people were more likely to take action due to the greater level of social cohesion in most times.
People have always had a burning desire for “news”, and the primary source for millennia was rumor.
I think we're using completely different definitions of "rapidly" if you're talking about the Roman empire and I'm talking about nearlight from one side of a continent to another.
People organized a nationwide attack on the US Capitol in 2021. It was a tiny fraction of the population that wanted to participate (much less participated), but they organized and came in from everywhere. What would that organization have looked like in Roman times?
Again, the reach is not new! Nor is the speed - it’s just before only the Right People could do it, excepting maybe AM radio.
Before that, the reach was still as far as people spoke your language - it just took longer and people relied more on hearing what you said from someone else, until the invention of the printing press. Information still spread rapidly and if anything, people were more likely to take action due to the greater level of social cohesion in most times.
People have always had a burning desire for “news”, and the primary source for millennia was rumor.