The Information Cycle

Whether we like it or not, we’ve all become somewhat accustomed to the phrase ‘content creation’ over the last few years. When it comes to professional writing – such as a marketing campaign, a communication strategy, a public relations strategy – there’s obviously going to be a significant amount of content that needs to be created. Some of that content will be directly aimed at very specific audiences: ads targeting regular consumers, social media posts focused on the more casual audiences to raise brand awareness, press releases to steer a narrative.

But just as content doesn’t appear out of thin air (obviously), the same can be said for information and understanding the cycle of how information is created can help us to conceptualize the ways in which the content we create will work its way through our audiences.

The information cycle seems like it should be objective and unbiased. Information is facts and facts don’t change (or, if you listen to some people, ‘care about your feelings’) so the cycle should be a relatively straightforward process, right?

Yeah, no.

The information cycle is a process that can, depending on the information and the circumstances that surround it, extend out for weeks, months, or even years. And as that time passes, there can be shifts in the information, based on who is publishing/sharing it and who they expect to read/consume it.

For our purposes, let’s think of the cycle beginning with a significant event that triggers a breaking news alert. We’ll use the implosion and loss of the OceanGate Titan, a tourist submersible that sank near the wreckage of the Titanic.

The Cycle in Action

• • June 18, 2023: The information cycle begins with breaking news alerts and social media posts announcing that the Titan has gone missing near the Titanic wreckage.
    • In the hours following those initial news alerts, real-time speculation explodes over social media, specifically Twitter and TikTok, including multiple viral videos about the sub being controlled by a video game controller and a frantic “countdown” estimating how much oxygen the crew and passengers have left.
  • Evening of 6/18 and 6/19/23: The cycle spins ahead as national news media like CNN and Fox New run continuous “Breaking News” banners over aerial shots of the ocean and have multiple discussions featuring summarized reports of the event. The internet media – free sites like Yahoo News, HuffPost, and local affiliates – post rapidly, including short articles that summarize press releases from the United States Coast Guard.
  • Days immediately after the disaster: As the ‘breaking news’ ceases to break, major news outlets begin to post longer investigative pieces. Organizations like The New York Times and The Washington Post publish detailed timelines of the dive and provide more in-depth information:
    • background info on the passengers
    • history of OceanGate (the company that owned the Titan)
    • the international logistics of the Coast Guard’s search and rescue mission
  • Weeks following the disaster: Various magazines and online outlets publish deeper dives into related topics. Wired and Vanity Fair publish pieces on the culture and psychology of extreme deep-sea tourism. Magazines focused on the engineering profession analyze OceanGate’ s decision to build the Titan’s hull out of experimental carbon fiber instead of the standard titanium.
  • Six – twelve months later: Journals dedicated to oceanography and materials science publish peer-reviewed studies on how carbon-fiber composites degrade and suffer fatigue under extreme deep-sea pressure.
  • More than a year later – now: Multiple new sources publish reports, articles, and books on the topic, creating new information.
    • The U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation releases its official, exhaustive government report detailing the exact technical failures.
    • Books are published analyzing the disaster’s impact on maritime law.
    • Civil engineering textbooks update to include chapters detailing the Titan as a case study in structural failure.

As the information moved through the cycle, it shifted in terms of focus, details, and perspective. If you – as a writer, content creator, or researcher – understand how the information cycle works, you can predict where to look for specific information, what angles/perspectives may be taken on the topic, and what levels/types of evidence you will be able able to find/use as the cycle progresses.

The Price of Information

It’s happened to all of us: you’ve done a basic Google search for a topic, found some results, clicked on one that sounded like it could be what you’re looking for and…

You hit a paywall.

This is the catch to the information cycle. As info moves through the cycle, it is transformed, going through rigorous fact-checking, being analyzed by experts, and put into broader contexts. Look back at the example of the Titan disaster. What began as breaking news alerts and talking heads on television speculating on things they didn’t know eventually became chapters in engineering texts designed to teach lessons on structural failure. The information shifted and became less about the tragedy itself and more about using it as an example, as a teachable moment, and putting it all in a scientific context.

But therein is the drawback to the cycle: as the quality and reliability of the the information goes up, free access to it usually goes down.

In the digital information ecosystem, many of the most reliable sources – in-depth investigative journalism, trade magazine/websites, peer-reviewed academic journals, even textbooks – only exist behind paywalls. This is a crucial detail for you to consider, whether you’re the one writing the information, consuming it, or attempting to use it as research material, as it impacts one of the key elements in all of those processes: access.

It’s obvious that paywalls impact you, the human user. If you can’t (or don’t want to) pay for access, you can’t get at that information in any kind of ethical way. What isn’t as readily obvious is that the same holds true for the tools you use to find the information in the first place. Search engines and free GenAI chatbots rely on the open web to bring you the information you’ve asked for. Google can point you to the paywalled source, but it can’t show you what’s behind it. Gemini or ChatGPT can produce summaries of open content, but they can’t read or summarize the content hidden behind the subscription fees. The tools you use hit the same paywalls that you do.

While this clearly puts a limit on the kinds of information you can access, it does something else that’s maybe more significant, even if it’s less obvious. It often changes the information.

That’s not to say that free/open sources or information isn’t true. Facts are facts, after all. But think about these questions: why are some sources free while others require a subscription and if a site or source is free, who is paying to ‘keep the lights on?’

The answer? Advertisers.

Free news websites and sources need revenue to operate and that revenue is generated by users viewing (and sometimes clicking on) ads. The more ads a user views, the higher the revenue and so, in an effort to keep users scrolling, reading, and viewing, those free sites will often lean away from objective journalism and towards sensationalism or heavy political bias, as those are the things that keep their users emotionally engaged.

Understanding the price of information is a key step in writing, consuming, and researching in the 21st century digital world.