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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   2503 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 6, 2023

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Has anyone tracked down the origin of the odd phrases that liberal news outlets and institutions like to use? I'm thinking of terms like "racial reckoning," "Christian Nationalism," "the Big Lie," and "national conversation about race;" they're stilted and people don't seem to use them IRL but are nevertheless quite common on places like the front page of Reddit. "Christian Nationalism" in particular looked especially astroturfed, it was all over the news last summer with no apparent trigger and then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. (Google Trends can confirm this.)

I suspect the spread of catchphrases like this are coordinated through something like JournoList or a foundation. If anyone has information about this I'd be interested to read it.

It’s more exciting if there’s a coordinated effort, but within publications via Slack and industry wide via Twitter, the media is now more connected to one another than they were, before. It’s a lot easier for this terminology to spread, and does not necessarily require a premeditated, coordinated effort.

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