Viral Culture, Viral Obsession

Okay so I was reading this book about the "viral culture" of the media. The author, Bill Wasik, argues that the new outlets of media-- blogs, online videos, e-mail, websites-- have all taken on a viral way of spreading information.

Nowadays news stories are reported sort of like hit-and-run car accidents. A story is reported, almost instantly there is a mass flood of attention and then it's gone. Like the Annie Le story, it was like we cared for five minutes and now.... Annie who? Even the most tragic stories are only given fifteen minutes of fame and then it's over. There are always exceptions though (i.e. O'Jay Simpson and Jon Benet). But besides those special stories that seem to mutate into objects of social obsession, I agree that the country goes through stages of ADD. Last year, the obsession was Obama-mania, then swine-flu, or the AIG bonuses. It is interesting to see how an event with moderate significance is reported over and over again until the public gets the hint that they should obsess about this as well. The problem then becomes who gets to decide what we obsess about. I will admit that I am a sucker for conspiracy theories and that I imagine someone like Rupert Murdoch is behind some mass plot to incite all liberals to madness. But that is so irrational, or is it?