On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 6:52 PM, James Salsman <
jsalsman@gmail.com> wrote:
Do you think
a comparison of
the effects of bias
in individual candidates' articles
to
the effects [of] systemic bias
towards trickle-down austerity economics
and the social implications thereof
in light of the WP:MEDRS-grade source
at http://talknicer.com/ehip.pdf
["Income inequality and health: A causal review"
by Pickett & Wilkinson:
"The body of evidence strongly
suggests that income inequality
affects population health and
wellbeing"]
might produce a helpful indication of
where counter-advocacy efforts would best be focused?
I know you didn't ask, but in my opinion, that sentence works better as
un poème concret.
One "formal" answer to your question would draw on the research you cited, and use the ideas there to specify editorial and other attentional and effort investment policies.
Viz., "Notable topics have attracted attention over a sufficiently significant period of time."
This is quite clearly a "trickle-up" policy: things become notable because of all of the aggregated attention. We can imagine a sort of crisis point at which background noise transforms into a conscious perception. I suspect that's probably a mistaken metaphor, and that consciousness is more like
mycorrhizae, like or the Hawkin-Ahmad theory of neurons, in which "the majority of the patterns recognized by a neuron act as
predictions by slightly depolarizing the neuron without immediately generating
an action potential." So, yes, there is a crisis point but it's not the only interesting thing.
Any massive inequality (income, attention, political perspective) points to a potential crisis. If one wanted to put forth a general policy, it might be to look for what happens before the crisis. For example we could study Psy's 17th single, "Korea" (the 18th being "Gagnam style"), and notice how it anticipates a "breakthrough" both lyrically and in the cinematography of its music video. Or for an example closer to home, look at how your sentence above was coiled like a snake ready to strike.