Not very "in depth", but an interesting commentary on the general decline of authority in today's world from the NY Times. Yes, the Internet is a big factor. For some reason, the article's title was changed. It ran in the Science Section today with the title of this thread, but it apparently had an earlier title which is equally on target:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/s...-hand-picked-truths.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/s...-hand-picked-truths.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0