[AceJohnny2]

I dunno, "collective delusion" sounds worse than a simpler "we weren't paying attention to the Thing, then media/memes sprung up and made us pay attention and we freaked out".

This happens all the time in our current media landscape. "Yeah health insurance denies claims sometimes, that's normal" to "wait actually health insurance denies claims routinely to increase its profits!?"

There are tons of things that we decide to ignore to go on with our lives. It's exhausting to freak out about all the things that deserve to be freaked out about.

[psc]

> There are tons of things that we decide to ignore to go on with our lives

Absolutely, we all need to filter the overwhelming amount of information we're faced with. The part that seems terrifying is that occasionally our filters can line up in such a way as to pick up what's just pure noise and escalate it into an enormous positive feedback loop.

And of course there's a whole discussion about how those filters are shaped (by the media we consume, authorities we decide to trust, direct experience) and how that's changed over time.

[mrandish]

We already have a more neutral term than "collective delusion"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentional_bias

[metabagel]

What's the term for when people's attention and outrage is directed by an unreliable third party (let's say a partisan news channel) towards certain issues/threats, and away from other equally (or more) significant issues/threats?

I'm not talking about editorial bias. I'm talking about deliberately manipulating audience attention in order to control the perception of reality. Another way of putting it is to create a framework for rejecting or distracting from 'disagreeable' ideas.

For example, a partisan news organization might highlight the purported cultural and economic threat posed by immigration. Since people have a limited budget for their attention, having their attention and outrage focused on immigration might distract from other issues such as rising inequality.

[toast0]

Curation? Programming? Editorial discretion?

[AceJohnny2]

Propaganda? Two Minutes Hate?

[taneq]

Moral panic?