Bose-Einstein & Journalism

[James Brody]

I suggested several years ago that human behavior parallels that in Bose-Einstein condensates in which separate atoms move into sync as temperature drops. The coherence becomes so strong that the material can sometimes be treated as one atom. It's also consistent with Heisenberg: as temperature drops, atomic motion stops but you still cannot define position.

From Wal-Mart to neural organizations we see parallel phenomena: cut resources and participants become more similar. (Another coincidence? Cut resources is another way to increase selective pressure and thereby increase conformity!) The "Project on Excellence in Journalism" finds the BE phenomena without recognizing it!

According to a piece by David Bauder, Http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=1717408, Americans can go to more sources for information but the stories vary less and contain fewer details. Investigative reporting is expensive in both salaries and time.
"The Project for Excellence in Journalism found the trend on television, in newspapers and on online. Cable news outlets, for example, repeatedly tell a limited number of stories. On one day, Google News offered computer users a menu of 14,000 stories covering only 24 separate subjects."

The illusion of more information is simply that: an illusion that can be manipulated more easily because it is supplied to many places by few sources. And there are fewer reporters: the exciting city of Philadelphia had 500 reporters in 1980 but 220 now. Perhaps most of them are with WC Fields whose tombstone is said to carry the slogan: "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."! Bauder's piece closes with a bit of irony:

"This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed."

Oh well...

JB

PS: Thanks to Rush Limbaugh & Dean Edell for alerting me to this report!

Reference:
Brody, JF (2003) The Seeds of Leviathan: Networks & Genomes. Presentation at Association for Politics and Life Sciences, Philadelphia, PA. August 30. (Presented for me by Todd Stark so that I could visit my new grandson!)