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Often it’s not the papers but the headline creators of these on-line magazines.
by prox 7y ago
Often it’s not the papers but the headline creators of these on-line magazines.
- Waterluvian 7y agoYou're right. That's important to keep in mind. But I don't think the medical and scientific communities are innocent to this either.
- barrkel 7y agoHumans are guiltiest. The market for attention optimizes for clear messaging, not nuanced, because that's what humans react most easily to. If it wasn't researchers or their university putting out press releases with clickbait headlines for funding purposes, it would be the next step down along the chain, popular science publications trying to maximize their readership. It still seeps out into the press when the results are of broad interest. Regulation is necessary to avoid: self-regulation of publishers, self-regulation of readers, regulation of speed of transmission. But the more connected our society is, the more power a viral message has to blow up, so the most viral messages crowd out everything else, and before you know it it seems like the whole world mysteriously has the same headlines.