The global digital media ecosystem is rapidly undergoing infrastructuralization, leading to the ecological consequences of news dispersal. Photo: TUCHONG
After a prolonged process of digital acclimatization, growing numbers of people are beginning to recognize that their lived experience is being shaped—and in many cases, dominated—by the very technologies they have created. The deep entrenchment of social media in daily life has become a major source of fatigue and burnout. Many report feeling overwhelmed, unable to escape from the relentless flood of news and updates. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han has described this condition as the defining malaise of our age: a “burnout society.”
Exploring role of media in burnout society
Burnout is not only a psychological condition or lifestyle—it is also a cultural metaphor, one whose discursive contours may point to the direction of future social transformations. This makes it all the more necessary to conceptually interrogate the deeper media mechanisms that contribute to the formation of burnout society. Yet in both academic inquiry and public discourse, this issue is often treated in overly simplistic terms, sometimes resulting in flawed logic. When we hastily attribute the problem to “excessive use of social media,” we risk falling into two traps simultaneously: a reductive, instrumentalist view of technology, and a form of victim-blaming that implicitly treats burnout as personal moral failure—suggesting that the widespread exhaustion of contemporary life is simply a matter of weak willpower or poor self-discipline.
However, historical experience tells us otherwise: when a technological configuration, bolstered by external forces, evolves into a general framework for practice and begins to exert a degree of dominance over human action, it becomes part of the structural environment—and acquires the capacity for autopoiesis, or self-generation, within its own system. Therefore, to effectively analyze the roots of burnout society and explore potential remedies, we must begin by dismantling the systemic logic of today’s digital media ecosystem. Only by understanding the underlying laws of its evolution can we identify the cracks within the system—and use those fissures as leverage points for imagining new forms of engagement and intervention.
This article is an exploratory study from the perspective of digital journalism. Journalism serves not only as an epistemological basis for determining “what is true,” but also as an experiential bridge connecting the self and the social world through both form and value. By analyzing the human–media relationship from the standpoint of news ecology and the essence of news culture, we may begin to glimpse the possibility of reconstructing a “positive society.”
Infrastructuralization: evolution of digital media ecosystem
The relationship between humans and media has become a fundamental dynamic in the ongoing transformation of digital society. On the experiential level, this relationship manifests in the widespread adoption of digital media technologies and the sweeping transformations—rooted in digital logic—across various domains of social life. The democratization of information production, the expansion of actor-networks, the fluidity of work and family cultures, and the resurgence of identity politics all represent experiential shifts that are fundamentally altering how individuals perceive and engage with the world around them.
Yet beneath these visible developments lies a more subtle and largely imperceptible trajectory: infrastructuralization. This process forms the underlying logic behind the transformation of media experiences. It is the primary force driving the evolution of digital media and communication technologies from discrete tools to comprehensive systems. Infrastructuralization unfolds through the interplay of three structural dimensions—technical architecture, protocols and standards, and networked relationships. Together, they shape the central direction of digital media’s development. In this process, the logic of mediatization has steadily permeated all spheres of life, elevating the importance of media systems in society while posing serious challenges to human subjectivity, as media increasingly claim dominant positions within culture and civilization. At this critical juncture, journalism stands out for its unique cultural DNA and historical significance, offering renewed epistemological value and insight.
News dispersal: ecological consequences of media infrastructuralization
Our understanding of news is closely tied to the historical and social contexts in which we invoke it. Throughout its long history, news has taken shape as a practice, a form of storytelling, and a network of relationships. Yet its primary ontological and epistemological roles have always been shaped by the specific conditions of each era and by the positions that different actors occupy within a specific news ecology. As one of the most significant “sub-ecologies” in today’s digital media landscape, digital journalism has inevitably been shaped by the broader historical process of media infrastructuralization. This article argues that “dispersal” offers a precise conceptual framework for understanding journalism as it undergoes this infrastructural shift. The notion of “news dispersal” thus provides a new point of departure for deeper theoretical inquiry into the nature of digital journalism.
Unlike “diffusion,” which typically describes the transmission of content or products through media channels, “dispersal” refers to a more holistic characterization of how news exists within social life. The term encompasses the ontological volatility and ceaseless movement of digital news, while also addressing its epistemological condition—frequently imperceptible in experience, and shaped by a technocultural symbiosis. Within the digital media ecosystem, while news is still predominantly event-driven, once it is set in motion, it is no longer anchored by any single institution, community, device, or cultural framework. Nor does it follow a clear linear path of dissemination. Instead, it enters a state of pervasive, sustained circulation. In this new paradigm, it is circulation—not professionalism or boundary maintenance—that forms the epistemological core of journalism in the digital era.
News dispersal creates a widespread crisis of truth at the epistemological level. Historically, news has served as a shared public medium through which consensus could be built around what was “true.” Today, however, it has become dominated by the so-called “post-truth” worldview. The process of media infrastructuralization only reinforces this trend, legitimizing relativistic notions of truth—up to and including a user-defined conception of truth—in everyday practice. Dispersed news is inherently fragmented and polysemous. It rejects centralized mechanisms of news production and distribution and resists any singular, authoritative interpretation of news value. The digital traces it leaves behind are not objective records of social reality, but rather multiple, competing “alternative narratives” and communicative residues.
News dispersal is a significant ecological consequence of digital media infrastructuralization. Through its attributes and effects, news gradually transforms into a media culture that perpetually circulates and venerates relativistic truths. When we describe the fragmented, highly individualized experience of digital news as “a thousand faces for a thousand people,” we tend to overlook a deeper issue: the relationship between news and humans, news and human social existence itself, and news and the material and spiritual conditions of people situated within a specific spatiotemporal context. Burnout is not simply the result of platforms, devices, and screens dominating our bodily behaviors; it is also a symptom of a deeper existential crisis rooted in a hyperconnected, ritualized, and post-truth digital news ecosystem.
Journalistic activism: rebuilding public life with breathing space
News is not only a key mediating force in the mediatization of the burnout society but also offers a practical, humanistic framework for addressing the growing sense of global social fatigue. Within today’s digital media landscape, the nature of news is gradually shifting—from a content-centered product to a mutable information relationship. The traditional news value system, which focused mainly on textual quality, is increasingly being supplanted by metrics that prioritize connectivity, relevance, and emotional engagement—indicators designed to maximize circulation. Yet news fundamentally differs from the “ordinary” digital relationships formed around socializing, entertainment, or affinity. Its very formation carries a persistent cultural publicness, ensuring that the news sub-ecology remains both embedded within and in tension with the broader media system.
Global research on digital news experiences and social surveys show that despite facing ethical critiques such as fragmentation, populism, and sensationalism, news remains an indispensable component of public life and the most important carrier of community values. The invocation of public interest is not merely a rhetorical gesture; it constitutes the conceptual foundation of journalism and the enduring source of legitimacy for both the concept and the practice of news. In this sense, we can regard various forms of digital news practice as the primary form of “entropy” within the autopoietic system of media infrastructure. For a highly developed digital media ecosystem, news is at once essential and troublesome. A fully fragmented or individualized media environment—the theoretical endpoint of infrastructuralization—would result in a profound loss of existential security, prompting avoidance or even withdrawal.
News dispersal plays a pivotal mediating role in the emergence of the burnout society. Individuals embedded in a dispersed news environment are increasingly drawn to integrate their private lives into broader social processes. Yet in the midst of this overload and exhaustion, they begin to function as a form of public actor. This paradoxical condition invites us to explore paths for alleviating burnout and rebuilding positive activism by focusing on the essential attributes and characteristics of news. Encouragingly, promising innovations in digital journalism have already opened valuable pathways, offering fruitful conceptual inspiration for addressing the burnout society from a theoretical perspective.
First, the openness of the entire news ecosystem should be continuously enhanced through the affordances of media infrastructuralization. The digital news system must remain inclusive of diverse actors and modes of action to sustain the diffusion and communication of public values throughout the media landscape. Second, forms of “journalistic archaism” –those practices that deliberately resist the pervasive connectivity of media infrastructure and seek to temper the effects of dispersal—should be recognized and encouraged. Ultimately, the conceptual and practical relevance of news is central to any serious effort to mitigate the burnout society. This perspective reminds us that research on digital journalism should not be confined to the structural features of the news ecosystem alone. It must also engage with the evolving relationships between news and individuals, and between news and society, in order to develop an activism-oriented academic agenda grounded in real-world contexts.
Chang Jiang is a professor from the School of Media and Communication at Shenzhen University.
Edited by WANG YOURAN