Baudrillard‘s “Simulacra and Simulation”, feels more relevant by the day. Although he seemed to use hyperreality more of a concept or symbol than something that could actually be realized, his proposed stages of hyperreal particularly come to mind here. Wikipedia has a good quick summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#Stage...

> Despite some pledges for reform, he feels the platforms are still governed by the wrong, sensationalist incentives, where clickbait and lower-quality content is rewarded with more attention.

This might bring back the subscription based trustworthy journalistic institutions.

Trust Me I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday is the definitive text on the subject IMO, published in 2013. Some of the examples the author uses involve manipulating humans here on HN to distort reality, in most cases for free press, shares, and back links.