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Re:Why Some Researchers Think I’m Wrong About Social Media a... by DrThunder on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @09:53AM (#35628152)
Yeah the 24/7 news cycle was definitely a precursor for this. There's not enough newsworthy things to cover in that time so they resort to sensationalism and drudging up anger wherever they can.

Now, that 24/7 news cycle gets carried around in your pocket daily and you get to see other people commenting on it.

Re:Why Some Researchers Think I’m Wrong About Social Media a... by naravara on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @10:01AM (#35628250)
> There's not enough newsworthy things to cover in that time

There is seriously no end to the number of newsworthy things to cover. The problem is that there are limited resources for coverage. It's expensive to staff a desk full of people who can find interesting topics and tell good stories about them for every subject area under the sun. It takes a lot of people with very variegated kinds of subject matter expertise.

It's much cheaper to have 4 or 5 people whose main skills are theater criticism level analysis of political events (i.e. how does this play with various demographics) and a skill of manipulating emotions to spend all their time speculating over nonsense instead. Just put them in a suit and have somber music on and we can pretend this is a serious matter instead of idle gossip.

Re:Why Some Researchers Think I’m Wrong About Social Media a... by rqtwteye on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @11:36AM (#35629512)
"There is seriously no end to the number of newsworthy things to cover."

Not when it also needs to be "entertaining". When you watch Fox, CNN and others they convey almost zero information about actual issues but only emotion and opinion.

Re:Why Some Researchers Think I’m Wrong About Social Media a... by naravara on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @03:46PM (#35632474)
What makes something entertaining or not isn't necessarily a property of the topic. I think you just need an expert who is a good communicator and really enthusiastic about the thing to help you understand why it's cool or important or interesting. The trouble is there are only so many Carl Sagan level people to go around.