The first breach in the barricade is something called "branded content" or "native advertising". [...] It is an ad that is written to resemble journalism--a pseudo-piece about the new scientific consensus [...] the ads are usually produced by the media companies themselves, not an ad agency. [..] T…
The profusion of data has changed the character of journalism. It has turned it into a commodity, something to be marketed, tested, and calibrated. Perhaps media have always thought this way. But if that impulse always existed, it was at least buffered. [...]
It wouldn't take much for a search engine to tip public opinion. One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, attempted to simulate the workings of Google [...] the authors kept reordering search results and then asking respondents to divulge their opinions. Placem…