News Information Decoupling: An Information Signature of Catastrophes in Legacy News Media

TL;DR

This paper introduces the News Information Decoupling principle as an information signature of major catastrophes in legacy news media, highlighting how media coverage reflects socio-cultural responses during crises.

Contribution

It empirically derives the NID principle from print media data, linking information theory with media studies to detect significant societal events.

Findings

NID serves as an effective change detection signal.

Legacy media exhibit distinct information patterns during crises.

The approach opens new research avenues in media analysis and information theory.

Abstract

Content alignment in news media was an observable information effect of Covid-19's initial phase. During the first half of 2020, legacy news media became "corona news" following national outbreak and crises management patterns. While news media are neither unbiased nor infallible as sources of events, they do provide a window into socio-cultural responses to events. In this paper, we use legacy print media to empirically derive the principle News Information Decoupling (NID) that functions as an information signature of culturally significant catastrophic event. Formally, NID can provide input to change detection algorithms and points to several unsolved research problems in the intersection of information theory and media studies.