The information cycle refers to how information is produced and changes over time. The University of Illinois Library defines it as "the progression of media coverage of a particular newsworthy event".
Why should you care about the information cycle? Well, it can affect whether or not you'll be able to find any information about a topic!
If your topic is a current event, you might only be able to find first-person accounts (interviews or tweets), newspaper articles, or videos on news sites. If you need more in-depth expert analysis, it might be too soon for anything to be published.
The University of Illinois Library has a great infographic on the information cycle. You can also view the text version.
