Information overload
Two reports allege we're entering an age of information overload. But is this a bug or a feature of the digital age?
My era of peak TV was 2018 - 2019. In the pre-pandemic days, spending two hours a day on the train, Monday to Friday, I was all about the box sets. I had a list of shows I ploughed my way through: Bojack Horseman, Halt and Catch Fire, and Derry Girls, among others.
These days, with a different commuting pattern (and the fact that I write this newsletter on the train), such lists of TV shows are a thing of the past. Besides, there are too many shows, too many streaming platforms, and nowhere near enough time (especially when you’re a parent).
Like that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry talks about the challenges of making friends as an adult, I’m just not looking for any new shows right now. It’s not them, it’s me.
I’m sure House of the Dragon is excellent, and generally, I despise being out of the loop on the latest cultural happenings, but I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment.
And that’s just TV - throw in the fact that everyone has a podcast to recommend, Substacks to keep up with, the latest essay generating a bunch of hot takes to read (man, that Tavi Gevinson one was weird), and there’s just too much content. It’s no wonder that when we need so much self-curation just to stay in the loop, we turn instead to the comforting wash of endless algorithmically served video. No thought required - lean back and be entertained.
The thing is, we’ve been here before with the “too much content” take. In 2016, our SXSW trend sessions at Teneo included a graph showing overall engagement going down as content production ramped up. I’ve definitely used that same line about not being ready to take on any new shows before. Too much content isn’t a trend; it’s an identifying feature of the modern age. And that feature is only set to grow more prominent as generative AI tools make it endlessly cheaper and easier to pump out content into the algo-sphere.
Not everyone agrees though. The team that put together the annual Communications Trend Radar report believes that the comms industry is about to reach an inflection point in this “too much” era. They fear an approaching moment of knowledge overload, where decision-making risks becoming impaired due to too “information inflation”.
The Reuters Institute for News team has already highlighted evidence of such information overload leading to news avoidance among a significant swathe of the UK’s population. The Communications Trend Radar team also mentions the fragmentation of our media landscape, a lack of differentiation in messaging and assets, and the sheer volume of monitoring material as other factors contributing to a sense of information overload.
Of the suggested evidence, only the first point around news avoidance strikes me as a genuinely notable indication that we’ve reached anything like peak information overload. The other evidence around fragmentation, distinctiveness, and volume are longstanding features of being involved in comms in the digital age. It seems flimsy to suggest they’ve accelerated enough to represent a notable trend.
The recommendations for lightening the information overload also feel distinctly lightweight. Don’t simply rely on digital; increase relevance, and focus on need-to-know information. These common-sense hygiene factors should underpin any form of communication, not be solutions to a burgeoning existential threat to our industry.
Because it is a genuine problem if people are switching off from the news. And while generative AI may save newsrooms money, it may also lead to bland, generic media output - potentially causing another spike in news avoidance.
Perhaps we need something more radical to arrest this slide. In a paper published in the Public Relations Review, Cesar Garcia suggests taking a more ecological approach to PR and comms. The argument picks up directly from the “information overload” trend in the Communications Trend Radar piece, suggesting that the brutal competition for attention in the modern age has led to excessive PR campaigns. In other words, we’re essentially like TikTok and YouTube creators, throwing as much as we can at the media algorithms to see what sticks.
Garcia argues that excessive production has led to a “Tragedy of the Commons”, where the public sphere has been overwhelmed and over-farmed, leading to a dearth of discussion around important societal issues. Taking the ‘over-farmed land’ metaphor further, the paper argues for a sustainability lens to PR and comms. We should practice a form of conscious consumerism, reducing disposable noise to focus on what matters.
Taking a less is more, fewer, bigger, better approach to communications and campaigning is never a bad idea. These are phrases I’ve heard more and more from clients over the past few years, particularly when it comes to social media. The days of driving organic reach through frequency of posting look to be coming to an end.
But the idea that reducing the number of stories and campaigns the industry produces would in any way contribute to the greater good dramatically overstates the role of PR in society. It assumes that the public even notices 99% of the work we create. People don’t care about our campaigns; they care about House of the Dragon, MAFS, and the latest Charlie XCX album.
I think the crucial lens both these papers miss relates to audiences. While it is the case that the general public consumes less news than ever, with a sense of stasis and endless bad news cycles driving this dwindling consumption, this is not a universal trend.
Corporate and B2B audiences are statistically more likely to remain loyal to their core titles and platforms. They will undoubtedly feel, as I do about the volume of TV shows out there, that there isn’t enough time to read/watch/listen to everything they’d like. But there’s little evidence to indicate that this feeling of overload is any worse than it was five years ago.
The job of any campaign or piece of communication has always been to stand out from the endless news stream, to earn the attention of your audience and to linger in their memory. It’s not a new challenge we face. Other factors will always compete for your audience’s attention - your stories must work hard to cut through. And that means focusing on four factors.
Distinctiveness: what makes your economic impact report unique? What’s the one nugget of surprising or shocking information that will make someone stop scrolling through their phone? And what’s the creative vehicle you can use to bring that one nugget to life?
Audience understanding and gatekeepers: where does your audience spend their time? What do they read/watch/listen to? And, crucially, in an age of abundant information, who is doing their curation job for them? Who are the gatekeepers, whether a newspaper editor, newsletter author or podcast host, selecting the information they think is relevant for your audience? We may live in a world with democratised access to publishing, but the role of gatekeepers and curation is still hugely important.
Sophistication: how can you make your message or campaign inescapable? How can you create the feeling that everyone of note is talking about your activity? Don’t just rely on a press release and some LinkedIn boosting. Carefully think through your channel plans, your campaign flighting and phasing, and the spikes of activity. Never forget it takes time and repetition for a message to stick.
Measuring impact: make sure you spend enough time (and budget) understanding how distinctive and memorable you were to your audience. And remember that you most often learn more from campaigns that didn’t go so well - be honest with yourselves and your teams.
I may not be taking on any new TV shows right now (we’ve just started our 57th Sopranos re-watch instead), but I still make a point to keep up with my Substack subscriptions and my blog feed. These are ingrained habits, and our habits tend to stick.
What we need to do is get a better handle on our audience’s habits, and spot the media equivalents of the shows they never miss, and the ones that end up on a long list they never get round to. Just because there’s more to watch than ever, doesn’t mean we’re switching off entirely.