A few weeks ago I pointed out a study that explained, "groups tend to spend most of their time discussing the information shared by members, which is therefore redundant, rather than discussing information known only to one or a minority of members."
Today I
ran across some research on how celebrities stay popular for so long that sheds further light on the subject. Essentially people talk about more famous people more because it's a social lubricant to have a shared topic, therefore making the famous more famous.
I've been spending some time thinking about how you break this cycle. Especially at work, it's important to share ideas that everyone doesn't know about yet as they may hold information that could push things forward in new ways. No answers yet, but it's interesting to think about.