Primary Components of "The Hype Machine:"
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, WeChat and a few others.
These platforms did not start out as components of a "Hype Machine," and they did not exist just 15 short years ago.
Now, many spend uncounted hours online, unable to tell fact from fiction, with a proliferation of what we are today calling "Fake News."
Prior to "The Hype Machine," most of us got our dose of "Fake News" when we checked out at the grocery store and we glanced at the National Enquirer.
Today, we are all reading National Enquirer type stories, everywhere and all of the time (in social media), reinforced by the fact that we know our friends are reading it as well...acknowledging and commenting.
We all know the cover stories are not real, and yet people buy the National Enquirer anyway.
The Hype Machine is reshaping our organizations and our lives...the very way we think, and even the biology of our brains. It is even more relevant today than it was before Covid.
Is it too late to fix "The Hype Machine?"
Once again, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Sinan Aral's "The Hype Machine." It is an important work.
