MetaNews: An Introduction

In the 21st century, we spend our lives bombarded by news. There is an extraordinary and unprecedented range of news sources, many of which offer 24/7 coverage. Large media corporations, social media, and citizen journalists all compete in a race for attention. Within this new media landscape, we must also contend with growing junk news, disinformation, and narrative warfare. The news itself has become a part of the problem; a staggering range of voices and narratives means it is hard to reach an understanding of base reality and make sense of the world.
We need a new way to process the news in response to this chaotic and polarized media landscape. The Consilience Project’s MetaNews uses analytical and computational tools to clarify what happens when news breaks. It analyzes thousands of stories in order to understand important moments in recent news cycles, producing a detailed analysis of representative stories from across the political spectrum.
MetaNews is the third and final article type within the open body of knowledge that is The Consilience Papers. Our analysis aims to make sense of polarized topics explored in our Situational Assessments, which cover consequential current events occurring around the world. Situational Assessments link directly to related Foundations pieces, which themselves provide a grounding in the social theory and essential history that is necessary to understand and address the unique problems of today. This sequence guides a flow of knowledge from underlying theory, through current events to the issues that have become highly polarized and drive social conflict. This is how The Consilience Project structures the contemporary knowledge required to help inspire a new movement towards a necessary cultural enlightenment.
Below, we use the recent example of TikTok to demonstrate how MetaNews addresses consequential and polarizing issues and equips readers with practical insights into the overall media landscape. Each feature outlines patterns and principles that can be applied beyond the scope of a single topic.
Any news cycle now involves multiple reports, interpretations, analyses and reactions, often including audio and video, and frequently edited or presented in biased or confusing ways. This relatively new development in news media defies our old approach of using limited news sources and believing what we see. MetaNews gives readers methods, structures and templates to help them evaluate the news. It identifies important dynamics within digital media to expose underlying principles for the reader. These include search engine optimization, tweaks to algorithms, and other often fast-changing factors. Understanding these tools helps the reader to improve their insight into the realities of news as an enterprise and a constructor of narratives. It helps to clarify what is really happening in the world, while at the same time uncovering the methods and motives of the media itself.
Of course, when engaging with news, people try to do this themselves automatically. As we read, or choose what we read, we mentally evaluate the sources, taking into account our personal sense of the past reliability of information from that source. MetaNews aims to do this increasingly difficult job for the reader, but at the same time helps to build their ability to recognise bias, manipulation and polarized narratives. It approaches the problems of 21st-century news methodically and comprehensively, exposing the fundamental reality of the media landscape. MetaNews features will deepen individuals’ understanding of what they see or read, and make them feel comfortable undertaking their own assessment of the news.