Not bike related: The Drama Economy

Tl;Dr: the ability to make money from drama makes for suspicious news

News is supposed to help us understand the world by providing factual information. Adding profit to the equation can cause strange results.

Imagine a peaceful, stable world – what would the news look like? Pleasant but cloudy weather; neighbors are grocery shopping; elected official gets hangnail. You know: normal things. Nobody would buy this news. It’s boring.

People crave drama. We have whole industries to create imaginary drama. But people like their drama more when it’s real (but often not happening to them…). So our information media (news) drifts into the entertainment media, and exaggerates reality towards the dramatic. Example: Shark Attacks – very low risk for people, but high drama value: if it bleeds it leads. Things have been this way for a long time.

What I’ve begun to think recently is that people & organizations have begun to manufacture drama as a way of attracting attention and/or making money. I suspect Political organizations (which should help stabilize our society – that’s what govern means) create drama to capture mind share, and those that do it the best (worst?) seem to benefit the most.

Degenerate is a word that seems troubled, but I think it’s the right word. Our media systems are enabling degenerative information – fake news, drama for the sake of money or attention, stories that don’t serve to inform us of the real world.

I wonder what’s new about this – has it always happened and I’m just becoming aware? Or is it really new? I think what’s new is the _scale_ of the issue.

Hmm


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One response to “Not bike related: The Drama Economy”

  1. Darrell Reeck Avatar
    Darrell Reeck

    Quite an insightful post about the news media, Dave. Maybe that helps me to understand why I’m not reading as assiduously as I used to.

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