Performative Skepticism and AI Anxiety in Platformed Media: A Digital Ethnographic Dataset

This dataset documents a digital ethnographic observation of recurring rhetorical patterns in popular media discourse surrounding artificial intelligence. It consists of curated screenshots, video metadata, and a long-form markdown transcript capturing how AI skepticism is performed, stabilized, and reproduced within platform-driven incentive structures. Rather than evaluating the technical accuracy of individual claims about AI, the dataset analyzes skepticism as a performative role: one that combines moral concern, expert invocation, and affective escalation while systematically avoiding epistemic closure. Thumbnail imagery, titling conventions, and guest selection are treated as primary ethnographic artifacts rather than peripheral marketing elements. The accompanying ethnographic report formalizes these observations, identifying a repeatable discursive loop—alarm initiation, performative nuance, expert consultation, affective stabilization, and continuity preservation—that functions as a durable cultural mechanism within the attention economy. The dataset is intended for reuse in studies of AI moral panic, platformed intellectual performance, media anthropology, and digital discourse analysis.