(2021-07-16) Guinn Welcome To Metaworld

Rusty Guinn: Welcome to Metaworld. that’s a damn big gap between the top cluster and everything else.... The network map is an arrangement of 4,804 articles from the Lexis-Nexis Newsdesk database published by broad-circulation, US-based outlets between January 1, 2021 and July 15, 2021 referencing violent crime. And the most influential lavender cluster…well, that’s the thing. It’s a cluster defined by people writing about how other people are writing about violent crime. In short, welcome to Metaworld, in which articles which explain the news increasingly ARE the news. (fiat news)

What IS concerning to me, however, is that in the last 18 months, this emergence of a central meta-cluster dominated by discussions of discussions of the topic has become the rule for practically every topic of any social importance

I am concerned because our data indicates that the language patterns, phrases, framing structures and arguments of opinion, analysis and explainer content are increasingly making their way into nominally hard news content

I am concerned because the combination of those factors is steadily removing feasible ways to consume real news that isn’t debased by fiat news, our term for opinions stated as facts.

I am concerned because this trend exacerbates and very likely prolongs political bi-polarity. It continues to support a world with two wholly distinct sets of ‘facts’. (Culture War)