My first instinct upon waking this morning was, “Need newspaper. Now.” And then I remembered that it’s 2012, and that I’m supposed to be a "digital native" millennial-type, so I reached for my iPhone. Without the intermediary of a foot-chilling front stoop, I was then immersed in a torrent of triumphant and cantankerous tweets, a red-and-blue chequered electoral map, and a New York Times video interview with a humbly vindicated blogger.

In the wee hours of November 7, 2012, while nocturnal printers churned out front pages of a beaming Barack, and radio and television airwaves resonated with the sound of his voice, almost every media player in the country (and many beyond) was concurrently converging on another, more instantaneous playing field. News organisations large and small, legacy and start-up, greeted Wednesday with virtual front pages proclaiming Obama’s victory, and promising a clickable cornucopia of elections-related multimedia tempting enough to drive even the most disciplined worker to procrastination. And then there were the memes...