Possibly the shorter news cycles are also a result of greater general disillusionment with politics and especially with elites, a theme outlined in Martin Gurri’s forthcoming book “The Revolt of the Public.”
Also, Gurri would say that elites have lost control of the news cycle. The top TV networks and newspapers used to be able to tell the public what is “news.” They could keep a story going if they wanted to. Now, people click away from stories that don’t grab them, so everyone in the media has to behave like a troll. It’s easier to do that with a current story than with last week’s story.
He didn’t mention Kaus’ frequent reference to the Feiler Faster Thesis, which he noticed nearly 20 years ago (when the Cable News Era was just starting to give way to the Brand New Web Era, but before the Social Media Era.)
Robin Hanson has this idea of distinct eras being characterized by differenct “doubling times” and exponential modes. Animal brains doubled every 35 million years, human foragers every 250 thousand, farmers every thousand, and industrials every 15 years. When the new period came about, the new, much quicker doubling time was sustained due to a fundamental shift in the pace at which certain key events or interactions could occur.
The news cycle also has similar modes, based on both the rate at which the public is trained and experience to be comfortable processing new stories (FFT) but also the pace at which journalists acquire information, communicate, exchange, and refine ideas. The internet changed this, but social media changed it more, Twitter in particular. Most top journalists are interacting with other journalists over Twitter almost constantly and with dazzling speed. That is a totally different way to come to a new consensus on what is fresh and hot vs. what is already old and played out, and from the perspective of the heavily virtualized journalist, the entire “conversation” feels completely played out much faster than in the past, often even before a story or article actually “comes out” in public.
Whenever I’m told something new is happening, I wonder if it is actually unprecedented. I agree that the large TV and newspaper outlets have lost power, but wasn’t there a time before they had the influence they had during the last 50 years? I recall that there were many newspapers competing for customers once. A big city would have half a dozen dailies; even small towns had two. Before the suburbs, a person walking across a city would see four-five front pages displayed at newsstands and hear the calls of “newsies” touting the latest scoop. After WW II, there was consolidation in this industry resulting in fewer voices. Now technology allows many voices. The new vendors seek to grab our attention and use the same sensationalist headlines as a 1930s paper would. We should be cautious about handing out our dimes as our grandparents were.
Leaving out the Elite stuff, there a bunch reasons news cycles appear to be getting quicker:
1) We have so much better access to news outside of our community. It is really easy to get information on Turkey’s monetary policy. Good luck in 1990 looking for this stuff. Back in the 1980s, most significant foreign news was 30 spot on news radio or local news. The more you get news the quicker it leaves.
2) A lot of news cycles are not truly significant news. Look Nikki Haley resignation was a news cycle but really something that probably his minimal significant to the average person. (I bet the number of people naming the UN diplomat is why higher than any time in the past.)
3) Probably the unfortunate part of faster and deep new cycles is this stuff makes a lot things seem worse today than ever. I bet most High School seniors do not know that the current murder is the lowest in 55 years and near historic lows. Or with issues of Valenzuela or Brazil election makes everybody think South America is at a low point but what a disaster it was in 1970s when military coups happened monthly. (Ok the Middle East is probably worse off but every other area of the world is most peaceful.)