The Bite Back: Part 3: How soundbite culture has shaped our society

The 2000s: Clickbait, bloggers, and the fall of the old news order

This piece is the third in a five-part series tracing the evolution of soundbite culture and how it’s shaped the way we consume information, debate ideas, and trust (or don’t trust) the media. Each decade tells a different part of the story. This series starts with the 1980s, when political campaigns, corporate advertising, and media consolidation collided to shrink our attention spans post-Cronkite era journalism. From there, I’ll look at the 1990s tabloid boom and reality-TV era, the rise of the internet in the 2000s, the weaponization of social media in the 2010s, and finally, the TikTok-brain algorithm-driven attention economy of today. Together, these chapters reveal not only how our media ecosystem has transformed, but how it’s changed our society and psychology at the same time.

Digital media and the Internet take over

The 1990s introduced spectacle as the organizing principle of modern media. By the early 2000s, the pace had gone into overdrive. With the machine of the 24-hour news cycle constantly churning in the background, cable networks filled every minute with wall-to-wall coverage, punctuated by punditry, speculation, and looping graphics designed to keep viewers agitated and engaged.

The real shift of the decade came with the Internet boom and the rise of digital outlets that could move faster and cheaper than newspapers or TV. Blogs and early online publications competed for our attention, pumping out a steady stream of fresh content everyday. Audiences came to expect real-time updates, and the stories dramatic enough to draw clicks often dictated what rose to the top of the mainstream news agenda.

While many new forces played a role in shaping the media landscape of the early 2000s, we have to start by talking about one unimaginable and tragic event that redefined the news cycle and set in motion years of coverage, reframing how global events were reported–especially by American media: September 11, 2001.

Read the full blog on the Bite Back Substack.