I just want to say bravo for this stunningly obvious (once I’ve seen it) analysis.
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This is hardly a new thing, or needing a study.
In the fall of 1994, the “Good Times Virus” hit. Actually, it was a warning about said virus. There was no actual virus, but the message spread virally.
It was written to sound authoritative, nominally sounded legit. It was a time when newspapers were getting interested in the online world, so one local alt weekly printed a bit about it, with a preface “we haven’t had a chance to verify this, but it sounds legit”. That was the point, people didn’t check, they thought it was legit and forwarded it.
At the time, I wrote something like “information is valued by how it is carried”. People often don’t question, but they get clues from other things, like is it in book or on the evening news. “Some guy” can say something and be ignored, because people aren’t listening to what he’s said, but looking to see if he’s important enough.
What gets most travel? Stories about the local science fair, or whatever is on tonight’s news? I thought it was our role to give coverage to what’s missing in old media, but instead the internet gives high travel to old media stories, and a lot of useless junk. I remember when Arlo Guthrie use to post in rec.music.folk and people went out of their way to treat him like anyone else. But now even bigger celebrities twitter away, and that gets high travel. Content isn’t rated on it’s own merit, it’s valued on who said it or how many people read it, and lands in old media “because it went viral”.
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