The difference is social media cannot be controlled. TV news can. It's a valuable tool for governments to have at their disposal in a time of crisis. Especially in the era of media consolidation a government might only need to influence a few large companies into spinning the story towards a particular direction. Naturally in a time of crisis with no other information the media is more likely to repeat official government information/opinion in any event. This is exactly why TV & radio stations are often among the first targets during a foreign invasion or domestic power struggle.
Yet this is changing rapidly. As the digital ecosystems become news channels themselves, news papers as we know them will die slowly but surely.
You think it only centralization of economies (communism) that's unsustainable? Its not. At the heart money is just another kind of information/data framework.
So the parallels although hidden behind a fog of semantics and retorics are really quite profound IMHO.
So although government might see broadcast media as the best way to control sentiment, it's slowly loosing it's grip of the population. A couple of generations from now and traditional newspapers are going to in the history books. They simply provide no value that newer social ecostems can't do better
