The current media model exhausts information and our societies with it. Content multiplies at such a pace that they sometimes cancel each other out: what was important yesterday is lost in the flow of tomorrow, what emerges in the morning disappears in the evening. The hierarchy of information is dissolved, visibility becomes a game of algorithms and the value of content is measured less by its quality than by its capacity to generate clicks, time spent or engagement.
A direct impact is the generation of cognitive obsolescence. Knowledge, when it emerges, ages before it has even been assimilated. Surveys are giving way to faster formats, sometimes generated by generative artificial intelligence, capable of automatically producing content. The debates are reduced to volatile sequences with a strong emotional charge.
Perishable material
Newsrooms are caught in a permanent race, citizens feel increasing information saturation and democracy struggles to maintain a common space of understanding. As Donella Meadows, a pioneering American scientist in systems thinking and ecology, put it, a system is “perfectly designed to produce the results it produces.”
The observation is clear: we do not suffer from a lack of information, but from a model which transforms it into perishable material. And it is not the responsibility of a particular actor: it is the structure of the system which produces these effects. For Donella Meadows, “the objective of a system is not necessarily human and does not always correspond to the goal sought by each actor in said system. In fact, one of the most vexing aspects of systems is that the goals of its subunits can result in overall behavior that no one wants.”
The editorial intention of media professionals is mostly sincere: to inform and enlighten. Neither journalists, nor platforms, nor readers seek this drift, but the overall system rewards speed, influence, quantity and novelty, to the detriment of nuance, time and critical thinking. Everyone acts rationally, but the whole produces irrational effects: mental overload, fragmentation of knowledge, loss of confidence and polarization. Faced with this structural dysfunction, it is not enough to change intentions: we must rethink the rules of the system.
Moving to a logic of use value
In the era of agentic AI which aims to create virtual and autonomous collaborators, there will be a growing need for reliable, structured and continuously updated knowledge bases to supply high value-added services, particularly in terms of decision support in companies. The contribution of agentic AI favors adoption primarily in businesses rather than among individuals: professional uses in fact justify investment in expert and actionable content, where the general public remains more economically volatile and becomes the terrain for powerful issues of influence.
Media aimed at professionals have a decisive advantage: their ability to sustainably generate subscriptions from readers, ready to pay for critical, verified and contextualized information. In this context, we can consider in the short term applying models from the circular economy to the information industry to design more sustainable products.
It is about moving from a logic of volume of disposable products to a logic of use value. This is what models from the functionality and cooperation economy (EFC) or programmed circular sustainability (PPC) offer: products, designed to last, are made available to consumers in return for a subscription which includes their maintenance. Transposed to information, these approaches promote the real usefulness of content rather than their volume: information is transformed into lasting knowledge and valued as an intangible asset.
A more robust cognitive base
In addition, this makes it possible to encourage evolving knowledge: updated, interoperable content, integrated into bodies of knowledge. The article becomes the starting point of the information life cycle and the industry moves from a flow logic to a stock economy, where value is based on the structuring and sustainability of knowledge.
Imagining such a transformation is not idealizing a distant future: it is giving meaning to what already exists. Information designed to last strengthens trust, reduces cognitive overload, allows you to better sort the essential from the superfluous and improves the quality of decisions, both individual and collective. Editors gain a more stable model, less dependent on the volatility of platforms.
Journalists find space to investigate, analyze, contextualize. Readers access content that is more enlightening, better prioritized, and truly useful. Territories benefit from information that feeds their public policies, cooperation, and social dynamics. Finally, democracy finds a more robust cognitive base. This change is not cosmetic: it is a change of purpose. It is no longer a question of producing more and more information, but of leaving the market of attention to enter an economy of understanding.
The authors of this column
Christian Bruère, president of the Association for circular programmed sustainability; Patrick Busquet, president of the Information for the Next World association; François Jeanne-Beylot, president of the French Economic Intelligence Union; Thomas Parisot, president of the French Information Industry Group; Henri Stiller, president of the Association of Information and Documentation Professionals.
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