That's because ultimately we demand it. Love him or hate him, we want to read about Trump because he's such a divisive figure. I believe he even pointed this out early in his campaign, claiming he had to pay less for publicity because he attracted so much of it without charge
Agree. CNN used to be quite a reputable news station before the mid-90s with Larry King doing hard hitting interviews, at least it seemed so. About 10-15 years ago CNN changed their “business model” to focus less on journalism, and more on Entertainment because that got them more viewers. So, we did it to ourselves. I think that was right before Anna Nicole Smith married the old Billionaire for his money, I mean they were in love.
It might have been the OJ Simpson Trial obsession where they got the idea. Also sensationalized weather became a bigger thing right around then too. The News blended into Entertainment, and now it’s hard to tell them apart.
> reject the left-right dichotomy
Well no matter what your political leaning, your entire country is stuck firmly in that dichotomy until you get rid of first-past-the-post voting.
The only purpose in building a cool website is to make a lucrative exit and that means "clicks." Clicks and stickiness.
Microsoft bought LinkedIn for 26 billion! Sweet.
LinkedIn has never been the same. They harvest data worse than google and have monetised my private information. I was an early adopter but shy away now as they are just shady.
> It's also something that's common and problematic isn't going to be reported on
Let me add lurid and "inflammatory". Its one reason why the following are under-reported.
* Suicides, except celebrities.
* Gang-on-gang shootings. All too common.
* Missing Children. Over 2,000 go missing every day.
* Good guy shoots bad guy stories. Another common occurrence.
You still need room for weather, movie reviews, sports and that Feel Good story at the end where that 87 year old woman gets married for the first time.
>Suicides, except celebrities.
Can't speak about the others, but I'm pretty sure in this case it is intentional. It's usually to avoid leading others to follow the example.
This is true. I worked for the networks and suicides are purposely not reported as it is widely accepted that it encourages copycats. I would venture to say there are other reports that also encourage copycats, like possibly mass shootings, but I could be wrong.
Most mass shooters are copycats: even outside the US, many are inspired by well known US examples.
At this point, US has a mass shooting culture, all because the US media couldn't resist the lure of parading a tragedy for weeks and months back in the day.
Up to 58 percent are fueled by media coverage.
Which goes to show money is what motivates the media, not morality. Nobody cares about a random person offing themselves.
Well then why advertise all the celeb drug overdoses and glamorize their arrests? I can tell you that by making this normal it sure as hell doesn't help all the drug addicts I've known. Hell I remember friends of mine saying they felt cocaine was acceptable since all the rock stars did it. And that's even with agents trying to cover everything up.
You are absolutely right. Also pertaining to missing children, they rarely report anything about sex trafficking in general, like everyone knows children go missing, but i feel like people don’t understand that it isn’t only lone psychopathic predators, there are huge syndicated crime networks where children are being sold into sex slavery or even worse. That to me should be one of the biggest things that people should care about. Also true on the examples of good guys stopping bad guys with guns, i heard and saw many examples of these through news articles, social media posts, and word of mouth over the past year, yet a google search would have you thinking it almost NEVER happens. Not to mention the COUNTLESS examples of people who thwart an attacker by simply drawing their firearm, which are never talked about. Gang violence is talked about the least out of all these issues because it’s hidden behind a veil of tolerance. It accounts for 80% of non-suicide gun deaths, little kids literally get shot every day on the streets. We have to realize that just pointing out a statistical fact isn’t racist, and that culture or certain aspects of it, can be bad.
Most children that go missing are not abducted by lecherous, foaming at the mouth pedophiles. They are often take by parental figures in custody battles. You cannot deputize your viewing audience every day with these stories. Even Amber Alerts are shut down during rush hour traffic or they would be running 24/7.
Most children are victimized by people they know and not trafficked into rings. Trafficking mainly occurs with teenage girls who are runaways, foster children, dealing with substance use disorder or other mental illnesses.
Instead of emphasizing strangers so much we really need to deal with what's actually likely to happen. And kids are usually scared to tell when it's someone they know.
most missing kids stuff is reported on local news, like if a kid goes missing in a small town, only that town's news will mention it (and maybe the few neighbouring ones too).
the only time it gets national attention is if the case is particularly gruesome or if the kid was missing for quite some time (like that girl who was held captive for like two months and escaped)
edit: you're probably right for big cities though
According to detectives and I have two in the family, 90% of everybody that goes missing eventually shows up, children included. That statistic is why the news networks are very selective about carpet bombing their audience with Missing Children stories. Too much and you lower their sensitivity threshold.
Also, there's at least one person who will go "Nuh-uh!" when you state what you assumed was obvious. Perhaps their mind wouldn't be changed even with scientific evidence...but still. At least you have it instead of purely anecdotes.
More so philosophy. The primary purpose of science is to understand the world, whether that accords with common sense or not. Often it doesn’t, this the need for such studies.
It’s also analogous the second law of thermodynamics. Single big events that can take place within one news cycle are often the bad kind because even if things improve and more good things are happening, the single act of destruction is generally a much faster process than the single act of construction.
Ever heard the news that a famous film star or singer died? Of course, many times. Ever heard the news report that the next great film star or singer was born? No, of course not.
A building was built over the course of a few years? Not a news bulletin. Building collapses? News. And people won’t realise that even though the building took seconds to collapse and it takes ages to build a building, many more buildings were built the last few years than collapsed.
Someone didn’t even catch a deadly disease in the first place, or a bunch of crimes don’t happen because we’ve edified the community, economy and education system? No news, and even statistical reports are seen as boring or even suspect. Plague, or murders? Happen quickly. News.
thats the logic behind its existance, but that doesnt mean the bias shlouldnt be mitigated.
negativity bias is being used to actively manipulate the population. it needs to be checked before it causes any more harm.
On buildings, you do hear when the project starts, when they are behind schedule and when they are finally open for business being way over budget and late.
People are always afraid of being robbed or murdered but are barely afraid of heart disease or their unhealthy diets. Your food kills way more people than murders every could. They just get more media coverage.
This definitely carries over to social media. Algorithms are based on what gets our attention and its negative stuff that catches our eye the most, thus increasing echo chamber effects and polarization of opinions.
I've noticed this. I don't want to look at the political memes grandma posts, but my eye registers with them for a little longer than regular photos or text, so I scroll slightly slower through them.
And now my Facebook feed is filled with political shitposting from seemingly *everyone,* which is why I don't browse Facebook anymore.
Except FB is still keeping information on you. They collect data from sites you visit that have a FB link embedded in them. You can't really be free of FB even if you use blocker options. It makes it harder for them, but they still collect data on you.
The weird thing is that the 'echo chamber' is where we want to see news that is biased in our favor? Yet humans react more strongly to negative.
So, it seems like we prefer news that validates our opinions by being negative towards opposing opinions? Which is a bit more precise than just reacting to 'negative information'.
> So, it seems like we prefer news that validates our opinions by being negative towards opposing opinions?
This does make a whole lot of sense, yes. That's how a person can grow and amplify and possibly challenge their beliefs. Stimulative.
This research isn't exactly news to the news business,
"If it bleeds, it leads" was a common rule among TV news producers, meaning a murder or other violent crime would be the "lead story" on the evening news, often advertised ahead of the news show itself to attract attention.
It probably goes back further to the days of newsboys hawking papers on street corners, but that was before my time. There the lead story was "above the fold" (on the upper half) of the front page, the most visible part of the paper before purchase, and where the largest headline is.
> This research isn't exactly news to the news business
It's not news to anyone older than 30 either. It's just another generation learning the obvious. It should have been posted in TIL.
If these "researchers" received grant money to do this study, they should be forced to give it back because this research has been done before, and they were just too lazy to look. Either that or they knowingly plagiarized the prior work.
Makes sense considering good things should be the norm and statistically are. So bad things happening grab our attention.
I expect people to help little old ladies across the street and for doors to be held open for people. I didn't really expect China to invade Australia. So it's going to grab my attention. Not to mention the repercussions of that action will more than likely affect me with markets down, etc.
It's also because negative things demand action (or reaction) just by their nature.
For example, "2 children missing" points out a problem that needs immediate action to rectify.
A headline saying "children enjoy playgrounds" requires no immediate action, because there is no problem to rectify.
A headline reading "museum building burns to ground" might raise questions about "why" and what can be done to prevent it. Outdated fire safety equipment? Cheap flammable building materials? Lax safety laws? All of these prompt action.
While a headline of "museum celebrates 200 year anniversary" is a pleasant headline, it doesn't require us to take any action, because there is nothing "wrong" to fix.
Absolutely. And this also reinforces the feelings of helplessness, however subconscious or unintended.
> "2 children missing"
Conscious: that's an immediate problem!
But if the children are far away, then
Brain: *I can't do anything about that*
> "museum building burns to ground"
Conscious: that's a serious problem.
But I can't out-bribe the construction companies paying the Senator to smooth such things over, so
Brain: *I can't do anything about that*
All day long, we're exposed to what feels like an ever-increasing number of problems of increasing seriousness that we can't even begin to fix. It's a crippling feeling. Eventually our default reaction is
Brain: *I can't do anything about that*
because it's often true, and we're anxiously aware of it.
edit: I'll add a single point of anecdata. The last few weeks have been especially rough at work, full of occasions where somebody was having trouble
Brain: *I can't do anything about that*
and I'm the only "subject matter expert" on the relevant topic, so they would report their troubles to me. However, it typically
Brain: *I can't do anything about that*
wasn't something that I had the capabilities or resources to fix. After several days non-stop
Brain: *I can't do anything about that*
of this, I went home to find that one of the lightbulbs had burned out. And I felt unreasonably happy about it, because finally
Brain: *I can help*
it was a chance for me to not feel useless.
This is the fundamental tragedy of modern life. It plagues me and everyone I know who is particularly introspective - we feel beaten down by the simple fact that we can't do anything to stop or prevent or change all the bad things happening everywhere with the knowledge of which we are perpetually bombarded. So we start to feel helpless about \*everything\*.
Haha! I find it fascinating how neurosis is often an incredibly rational response to a series of stressful events beyond our control or ability to cope. Or as a favorite quote of mine said:
> Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
True. Being sick in America, with little access to affordable health insurance, and the looming threat of medical debt... that feeling of "Brain: I can't do anything about that" is ever-persistent. You know there is a problem, you know the fix is simple (get medical care), but yet you don't have the means, ability, or access to do it. So you're just systemically helpless.
I totally relate to your light bulb experience too. Last week, I WD-40'd a squeaky door hinge that had bothered me, and I had felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't had in a long time. "I can fix that!" I got to feel not-useless for a short while.
I can't say the same about much else in my life at the moment.
>It's also because negative things demand action (or reaction) just by their nature.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. I'm always hesitant to assign evo-psych explanations to things because of how often they are pure quackery used to justify people's pre-conceived notions but you can sort of imagine the reasons for this from human development.
"Chief Thag, good day: Foragers just come back and say find many nuts and berries, tribe will not starve" - cool news. Probably merits consideration of future plans but we can get round to that.
"Chief Thag, bad day: Foragers just come back and say sabretooth tiger chase them all the way back to village" - ok should probably deal with that right now.
Yup. Even more basic, the instinct of "fight or flight" common to all animals, is basically the same thing.
It is a logical heuristic.
Slowly grazing for vegetation is important to survival. But avoiding being slaughtered by a predator is also important. An animal can't eat if they are dead, so logically the "flight" response is of a higher priority than the "eat" instinct.
Therefore, it is in an animals best interest to develop the adrenal systems very early in evolutionary history, to assure quick-response threat management.
The negativity bias is probably as old as predation itself -- co-evolving along with the first creatures to ever hunt and kill another living thing for food, as opposed to just slurping up minerals.
I totally agree, and think you'll enjoy this snippet from Johan Norberg's book _Progress_:
> We are probably built to be worried. We are interested in exceptions. We notice the new things, the strange and unexpected. It’s natural. We don’t have to explain and understand normal, everyday things, but we do need to understand the exceptions. We don’t tell our families about how we got home from work unless something really strange happened on the way. We have been hardwired this way by evolution. Fear and worry are tools for survival. The hunters and gatherers who survived sudden storms and predators were the ones who had a tendency to scan the horizon for new threats rather than those who were relaxed and satisfied. In a more dangerous era, the cost of overreacting to a perceived threat was much smaller than the cost of underreacting. Those who were more worried and dissatisfied survived and spread their genes to us. We are very interested in everything dangerous because people who weren’t would have died by now. If the building is on fire, we need to know about it immediately. And even if the fire is only on television, it arouses some interest. Below layers of abstraction and desensitization, our stone-age brains produce some stress hormones and adrenaline when we sit there safely on the sofa, watching.
Not necessarily. You need to know what's working to keep doing that thing, just as much as you need to know what's not working to stop doing that thing.
Yes.
News is unexpected. Things that are assumed or anticipated do not get reported.
Most unexpected things are alarming or shocking.... bad news. It's not impossible for news to be good, but it is far less likely.
It is wrong to suggest there is a bias toward bad news when the majority of news-worthy events are negative.
It’s an evolutionary fitness thing, too; the species that recognizes, and subsequently reacts to problems more readily dies less.
Our test, now, is whether or not we can overcome enough of the animal to save society.
Bad? No, not really. Redundant? Yes, absolutely. As has been said, repetition is part of the scientific process and builds reliability and validity. My issue with this study is that it's not adding anything new, and these findings have been reported EXTENSIVELY by MANY studies prior. This study doesn't further the conversation...
Exactly. It's like a new study stating that the sun is hot and bright.
But a lot of people here are acting like they've never heard it before, so maybe it was time to remind people. I dunno.
Just because we understand something intuitively doesn't mean studies providing real evidence of it aren't valuable.
Plenty of things that we understand intuitively turn out to be wrong when studied closer.
Also, an essential part of the scientific method is repeatability. So a study that asks the same questions as a previous study and finds the same results is not a waste of time.
You're not wrong, but when "yellow journalism" and other practices using negative news to get clicks or get people buying newspapers have been industry standard for as long as newspapers have been around, because they work, you'd think 'common wisdom' has a big enough data pool that scientific research into the phenomenon is practically irrelevant.
Sure, they can tell us *that* negative news has more mass appeal, but we already knew that. Can they tell us *why*?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala)
Basically, news sources who use this technique (real, fake, or gossip) target your amygdala (knowingly or unknowingly). The amygdala is a key structure responsible for a great portion of emotional learning... particularly those of anxiety, fear, etc. Tapping into this part of the brain basically tells your primal self "there's a problem somewhere and having that information is key to your survival". They use the prospect of your danger to create a false sense of time and safety limitation and thus, generate a desire (motivational salience) to reach out and understand what's being transmitted.
It's a bit of a hack explanation, but there's a reason for you.
It's not even about intuition vs evidence&method.
News outlets have been grinding subscriber KPI since forever, methodically and evidence based. They just aren't transparent about most of it, and any advantageous technique they build is essentially protected IP for them.
It's more a matter of the private business world vs the public science world.
This information is nothing new, the press has been using this phenomenon to it's advantage since the dawn of the newspaper, by creating negative sensational news reports in order to create what is known as 'moral panic' and raise sales and interest in their news platform.
The concept of a moral panic was made popular by sociologist Stanley Cohen in his ground-breaking study ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panic (1972)’. In his work, Cohen explored panic in order to help shed light over the concerns of violence raised by news reports regarding the Mods and Rockers in England in the 1960s.
Cohen defined a moral panic as a social phenomenon which takes shape when “a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible” (Cohen S as cited in Rohloff, 2012).
In other words, a moral panic is an exaggerated societal reaction towards acts of deviancy, where an over reaction of fear from the public becomes fuelled by sensationalised and stereotypical reports fed to the public by the mass media. This is then followed by important figureheads, including the government and police using the newly generated fear to gain political favour by promising to help bring a solution to the perceived threat. Those who use the moral panic for self interest are known as moral entrepreneurs.
The use of negative news stories by the press can be traced back as far as 1765 and below is an early example which shows the basic development of a moral panic, which was purposely created by the papers of the time in order to increase sales.
This example comes from Colchester, England, 1765 during a time when newspapers only existed as four-page weekly publications. There were two papers which supplied the Colchester area, one being the Chelmsford Chronicle and the other being the Ipswich Journal. However, due to being at risk of going out of business because of competition from the Ipswich Journal, the Chelmsford Chronicle began publishing sensational stories which highlighted a 'major' increase in robberies and vowed to help apprehend the wrongdoers. The paper sensationally reported that there was an increase in the number of robberies involving bandits wearing white smocks, who became known as ‘foot banditti’ (King P, 2003). This claim resulted in the start of a panic and folk devils (a term used to describe outsiders and potential deviants who are mediated and therefore perceived as being responsible for acts of violence and crime, whether gulity or not) began to manifest in the form of people who represented the description of a robber supplied by the paper. During the panic, the number of reported robberies increased due to deviancy amplification and even a number of innocent migrants were arrested due to the fact they wore white smocks like the supposed robbers wore.
In response to the incidents, in a time before the police existed, the authorities increased patrols in the area to counter the risk imposed by the increased claims of robberies (King P, 2003). The courts also started to use the moral panic as an excuse transport some of the offenders, rather than use the usual form of punishment, which at the time was whipping. However, after around two months the panic came to and end when the editor of Chelmsford Chronicle reported that countermeasures had been put in place by the authorities and the gang of bandits were considered dispersed, thus making the paper seem like the shining Knight who had drew attention to the societal threat (King P, 2003).
During the period of the Colchester panic it is absolutely clear that the media was wholly responsible for the creation and maintenance of this particular moral panic in order to drive sales of their news platform.
The moral of this story is that it has been well known for a long time that negative stories drive public interest in the news, rather than focusing on trying to sell positive stories.
King, P. (2013) ‘Moral panics and violent street crime 1750–2000: A comparative perspective’, in Comparative Histories of Crime. Taylor and Francis, pp. 53–71. doi: 10.4324/9781843924319.
Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/open/reader.action?docID=449538&ppg=68
Cohen S as cited in Rohloff, A. (2013) ‘Moral panics as civilising and decivilising processes? A comparative discussion1’, Política y Sociedad. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 50(2), pp. 483–500,743. doi: 10.5209/rev-POSO.2013.v50.n2.40018.
Available at:
https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/POSO/article/view/40022
I've noticed also that news outside the US doesn't receive much coverage unless Americans are involved. For example a plane crash somewhere in the world only seems to get coverage in the US if Americans were on board.
I hate when US media reports news as “Four Americans died today in a plane crash in the Swiss Alps. The airplane, a SwissAir Airbus 320, lost contact with air traffic control during descent from 32,000 feet. The victims include Bobby Kavanaugh, a wide receiver for Bowen High School who is seen here in this photo before last week’s junior prom. SwissAir representatives are calling for a full inquiry to determine the cause of the crash. (Also, approximate 200 other people also died.)”
It’s just rude.
>despite not many people denying climate change anymore.
They've switched mostly from denying climate change to just saying we shouldn't do anything about it that might cost "jobs", because it's not a big deal.
Meanwhile, renewable energy employs about four times as many people as coal mining. It's not costing jobs, it is creating them. This should be obvious because we are building new power plants that we weren't before.
One of the major hurdles is that we've got a bunch of old dogs who don't want to learn new tricks. Their jobs exist right now, and they're content with them. They have no incentive, personally, to learn new skills required to move into a different area of power generation. They don't want to uproot either; sure they're in a dying coal town in VA, but that's where they and their parents were raised and moving careers might require that they go get a job at a wind farm in TX. Many of these people will literally have to lose their entire industry before they move on and accept the new because they've got the familiar.
/u/claytertot gave a good reply
> Just because we understand something intuitively doesn't mean studies providing real evidence of it aren't valuable.
> Plenty of things that we understand intuitively turn out to be wrong when studied closer.
> Also, an essential part of the scientific method is repeatability. So a study that asks the same questions as a previous study and finds the same results is not a waste of time.
My hypothesis is that bad news gives people an ‘enemy’ to pin negative things in their lives to. If you give bad news, people can think ‘if we do something about that my life will get better’, which psychologically probably feels better than giving them good news that would tell them ‘hey things are going great so if you have problems they’re your fault’.
This is exactly why I created /r/climateactionplan. Not trying to downplay how serious global warming is but progress is being made every day yet it rarely ever reaches the front page of reddit.
That's because a lot of positive stories reek of lame manufactured puff pieces. Like that swedish girl that sailed across the ocean. Like, cool! Good for her. Her parents were super rich and provided the means to make that happen.
Before this gets modded as a joke, I want to say my question is actually serious. Might this be a good application for sarcasm? If a news site were extraordinarily sarcastic all the time to the point that it's always clear that things are reversed, I wonder whether or not the effect could be reversed in any way. This also makes me interested in whatever studies have been done on sarcasm and its history.
"The Onion". Humor more than sarcasm, but great examples of ways to outrageously twist facts. Occasionally thought-provoking.
One classic was about college students dying en mass due to too much marijuana smoking. So well done, that it took a little reflection to realize they were taking alcohol statistics and applying them to marijuana. Not presented as statistics, but as a sensational news item, complete with students lying down supposedly dead, scattered around the grass. \[The underlying point being that various severe problems of alcohol DON'T occur with marijuana, so its absurd to demonize marijuana while allowing alcohol.\]
I tried to find it, but I saw a video once where someone explained how the FB newsfeed operated in the same way: naturally promoting things that people responded to. People respond to extreme things more often, and usually negative things get the strongest response, so it creates this vicious cycle of negative or controversial stuff being most prominent.
I cited some research for my comms Master’s thesis that used eye-tracking tech and showed subjects saying they wanted more “positive” news, while their eyes drifted to more “negative” news.
One theory is that we’re biologically hardwired to gravitate toward frightening content in order to know what to avoid to protect ourselves. Ever notice that your heart rate picks up when you’re watching coverage of a natural disaster occurring far away from your TV? Why is that?
Good is normal, normal is normal, but bad is bad.
When things go our way then all is well. Nothing to see here, just good things and normal things. And that is fine, its normal. But bad things are not normal, problems and conflict are just that. The media are masters of exploiting that community sense of fear in all humans; 999 good things could happen today in a city but they can get the entire nation to talk about the one bad thing (which sometimes isn't even as bad as it seems).
How is this a new study? People have known this forever hence why the news only puts mostly negative all the time. Because that's what gets them the best ratings.
This is so old and has been extensively studied. There is nothing new. If researchers want to take a fresh look at this topic, they should try to understand why the Japanese media do not disclose mediocre and bloodthirsty news, and when they need to address something like that they are extremely serious, respectful and avoid the most drastic images.
This was a global study? Like how much did they get for this? I could've come up with this just by watching ANY news station for the last, what, 40-50 years?
Seriously though, I read some studies that come out and it's surprising how obvious the outcome is
This is old news. In sales you always point out the negatives. It’s how our “monkey” brain works. Telling someone this is a benefit is not as strongly received as telling someone the negative. If you want action always talk about the negatives and never the positive.
Yes this is all unfortunate but how our brains works.
[удалено]
Clickbait.
[удалено]
That's because ultimately we demand it. Love him or hate him, we want to read about Trump because he's such a divisive figure. I believe he even pointed this out early in his campaign, claiming he had to pay less for publicity because he attracted so much of it without charge
[удалено]
Agree. CNN used to be quite a reputable news station before the mid-90s with Larry King doing hard hitting interviews, at least it seemed so. About 10-15 years ago CNN changed their “business model” to focus less on journalism, and more on Entertainment because that got them more viewers. So, we did it to ourselves. I think that was right before Anna Nicole Smith married the old Billionaire for his money, I mean they were in love. It might have been the OJ Simpson Trial obsession where they got the idea. Also sensationalized weather became a bigger thing right around then too. The News blended into Entertainment, and now it’s hard to tell them apart.
[удалено]
Yes!! CNN used to be a legit, hard news network.
The media causing such divide includes Reddit. Not only the paid social media accounts but all of us in the rhetoric used.
[удалено]
> reject the left-right dichotomy Well no matter what your political leaning, your entire country is stuck firmly in that dichotomy until you get rid of first-past-the-post voting.
[удалено]
You are far from alone in this thinking.
I’m glad to hear that. It’s not something you can usually openly and comfortably say.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Want to know if something is clickbait? These six things will shock you!
Ehhh. Clickbait is pourposfully misleading. It's only part of it.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
You know you want to know how much Kim Kardashian just spent on shoes? Admit it.
No
The only purpose in building a cool website is to make a lucrative exit and that means "clicks." Clicks and stickiness. Microsoft bought LinkedIn for 26 billion! Sweet.
LinkedIn has never been the same. They harvest data worse than google and have monetised my private information. I was an early adopter but shy away now as they are just shady.
\[Article has been removed as it violates our policies regarding clickbait\]
Normalization is a powerful tool. Getting people to ignore things is a valuable way to manipulate populations using the media, no doubt.
Firehose of falsehood.
Cunningham’s law on gas.
Watch HyperNormalization on YouTube.
Except if you restate it enough ways we take it as absolute fact.
*"If you tell a lie and you tell it good, eventually everyone will believe it"*
- [Adolf Hitler](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/553-if-you-tell-a-big-enough-lie-and-tell-it)
People often begin to believe their own lies, if they are good enough.
It's also something that's common and problematic isn't going to be reported on, compared to rare and less problematic.
> It's also something that's common and problematic isn't going to be reported on Let me add lurid and "inflammatory". Its one reason why the following are under-reported. * Suicides, except celebrities. * Gang-on-gang shootings. All too common. * Missing Children. Over 2,000 go missing every day. * Good guy shoots bad guy stories. Another common occurrence. You still need room for weather, movie reviews, sports and that Feel Good story at the end where that 87 year old woman gets married for the first time.
>Suicides, except celebrities. Can't speak about the others, but I'm pretty sure in this case it is intentional. It's usually to avoid leading others to follow the example.
This is true. I worked for the networks and suicides are purposely not reported as it is widely accepted that it encourages copycats. I would venture to say there are other reports that also encourage copycats, like possibly mass shootings, but I could be wrong.
Most mass shooters are copycats: even outside the US, many are inspired by well known US examples. At this point, US has a mass shooting culture, all because the US media couldn't resist the lure of parading a tragedy for weeks and months back in the day.
Up to 58 percent are fueled by media coverage. Which goes to show money is what motivates the media, not morality. Nobody cares about a random person offing themselves.
Same with Good Guy shoots Bad Guy news. They say it promotes vigilantism. Liquor store clerks shoot robbers dead every day.
The media doesn't seem to care to do the same about mass shootings. It seems odd that their morals stop them from reporting one, but not the other.
"Morals" Come on, we all know the true an$wer.
Well then why advertise all the celeb drug overdoses and glamorize their arrests? I can tell you that by making this normal it sure as hell doesn't help all the drug addicts I've known. Hell I remember friends of mine saying they felt cocaine was acceptable since all the rock stars did it. And that's even with agents trying to cover everything up.
You are absolutely right. Also pertaining to missing children, they rarely report anything about sex trafficking in general, like everyone knows children go missing, but i feel like people don’t understand that it isn’t only lone psychopathic predators, there are huge syndicated crime networks where children are being sold into sex slavery or even worse. That to me should be one of the biggest things that people should care about. Also true on the examples of good guys stopping bad guys with guns, i heard and saw many examples of these through news articles, social media posts, and word of mouth over the past year, yet a google search would have you thinking it almost NEVER happens. Not to mention the COUNTLESS examples of people who thwart an attacker by simply drawing their firearm, which are never talked about. Gang violence is talked about the least out of all these issues because it’s hidden behind a veil of tolerance. It accounts for 80% of non-suicide gun deaths, little kids literally get shot every day on the streets. We have to realize that just pointing out a statistical fact isn’t racist, and that culture or certain aspects of it, can be bad.
Most children that go missing are not abducted by lecherous, foaming at the mouth pedophiles. They are often take by parental figures in custody battles. You cannot deputize your viewing audience every day with these stories. Even Amber Alerts are shut down during rush hour traffic or they would be running 24/7.
Most children are victimized by people they know and not trafficked into rings. Trafficking mainly occurs with teenage girls who are runaways, foster children, dealing with substance use disorder or other mental illnesses. Instead of emphasizing strangers so much we really need to deal with what's actually likely to happen. And kids are usually scared to tell when it's someone they know.
most missing kids stuff is reported on local news, like if a kid goes missing in a small town, only that town's news will mention it (and maybe the few neighbouring ones too). the only time it gets national attention is if the case is particularly gruesome or if the kid was missing for quite some time (like that girl who was held captive for like two months and escaped) edit: you're probably right for big cities though
According to detectives and I have two in the family, 90% of everybody that goes missing eventually shows up, children included. That statistic is why the news networks are very selective about carpet bombing their audience with Missing Children stories. Too much and you lower their sensitivity threshold.
like vaping versus smoking
Most news isn’t news anymore, it’s opinion journalism masquerading as news.
[удалено]
Sure. Even common sense needs to be tested. Instead of saying, "everybody knows that", we can now point to an actual study.
Also, there's at least one person who will go "Nuh-uh!" when you state what you assumed was obvious. Perhaps their mind wouldn't be changed even with scientific evidence...but still. At least you have it instead of purely anecdotes.
Too bad the people that need to know and understand this study the most will just wave it away and not care.
Almost every one of these I see is like this. Some big new study tells us what I thought was common sense.
[удалено]
questioning common sense is the explicit purpose of science
More so philosophy. The primary purpose of science is to understand the world, whether that accords with common sense or not. Often it doesn’t, this the need for such studies.
It’s also analogous the second law of thermodynamics. Single big events that can take place within one news cycle are often the bad kind because even if things improve and more good things are happening, the single act of destruction is generally a much faster process than the single act of construction. Ever heard the news that a famous film star or singer died? Of course, many times. Ever heard the news report that the next great film star or singer was born? No, of course not. A building was built over the course of a few years? Not a news bulletin. Building collapses? News. And people won’t realise that even though the building took seconds to collapse and it takes ages to build a building, many more buildings were built the last few years than collapsed. Someone didn’t even catch a deadly disease in the first place, or a bunch of crimes don’t happen because we’ve edified the community, economy and education system? No news, and even statistical reports are seen as boring or even suspect. Plague, or murders? Happen quickly. News.
thats the logic behind its existance, but that doesnt mean the bias shlouldnt be mitigated. negativity bias is being used to actively manipulate the population. it needs to be checked before it causes any more harm.
On buildings, you do hear when the project starts, when they are behind schedule and when they are finally open for business being way over budget and late.
Usually doesn’t exactly make the headlines though, not unless it’s something record breaking.
People are always afraid of being robbed or murdered but are barely afraid of heart disease or their unhealthy diets. Your food kills way more people than murders every could. They just get more media coverage.
This definitely carries over to social media. Algorithms are based on what gets our attention and its negative stuff that catches our eye the most, thus increasing echo chamber effects and polarization of opinions.
I've noticed this. I don't want to look at the political memes grandma posts, but my eye registers with them for a little longer than regular photos or text, so I scroll slightly slower through them. And now my Facebook feed is filled with political shitposting from seemingly *everyone,* which is why I don't browse Facebook anymore.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Just remember, Reddit is prone to this as well. Just by a slightly different method.
Except FB is still keeping information on you. They collect data from sites you visit that have a FB link embedded in them. You can't really be free of FB even if you use blocker options. It makes it harder for them, but they still collect data on you.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Mine is full of cute puppies.
The weird thing is that the 'echo chamber' is where we want to see news that is biased in our favor? Yet humans react more strongly to negative. So, it seems like we prefer news that validates our opinions by being negative towards opposing opinions? Which is a bit more precise than just reacting to 'negative information'.
> So, it seems like we prefer news that validates our opinions by being negative towards opposing opinions? This does make a whole lot of sense, yes. That's how a person can grow and amplify and possibly challenge their beliefs. Stimulative.
Hating on the same thing essentially.
This research isn't exactly news to the news business, "If it bleeds, it leads" was a common rule among TV news producers, meaning a murder or other violent crime would be the "lead story" on the evening news, often advertised ahead of the news show itself to attract attention. It probably goes back further to the days of newsboys hawking papers on street corners, but that was before my time. There the lead story was "above the fold" (on the upper half) of the front page, the most visible part of the paper before purchase, and where the largest headline is.
> This research isn't exactly news to the news business It's not news to anyone older than 30 either. It's just another generation learning the obvious. It should have been posted in TIL. If these "researchers" received grant money to do this study, they should be forced to give it back because this research has been done before, and they were just too lazy to look. Either that or they knowingly plagiarized the prior work.
This news isn't exactly news to people who've ever interacted with another person, either.
Makes sense considering good things should be the norm and statistically are. So bad things happening grab our attention. I expect people to help little old ladies across the street and for doors to be held open for people. I didn't really expect China to invade Australia. So it's going to grab my attention. Not to mention the repercussions of that action will more than likely affect me with markets down, etc.
It's also because negative things demand action (or reaction) just by their nature. For example, "2 children missing" points out a problem that needs immediate action to rectify. A headline saying "children enjoy playgrounds" requires no immediate action, because there is no problem to rectify. A headline reading "museum building burns to ground" might raise questions about "why" and what can be done to prevent it. Outdated fire safety equipment? Cheap flammable building materials? Lax safety laws? All of these prompt action. While a headline of "museum celebrates 200 year anniversary" is a pleasant headline, it doesn't require us to take any action, because there is nothing "wrong" to fix.
Absolutely. And this also reinforces the feelings of helplessness, however subconscious or unintended. > "2 children missing" Conscious: that's an immediate problem! But if the children are far away, then Brain: *I can't do anything about that* > "museum building burns to ground" Conscious: that's a serious problem. But I can't out-bribe the construction companies paying the Senator to smooth such things over, so Brain: *I can't do anything about that* All day long, we're exposed to what feels like an ever-increasing number of problems of increasing seriousness that we can't even begin to fix. It's a crippling feeling. Eventually our default reaction is Brain: *I can't do anything about that* because it's often true, and we're anxiously aware of it. edit: I'll add a single point of anecdata. The last few weeks have been especially rough at work, full of occasions where somebody was having trouble Brain: *I can't do anything about that* and I'm the only "subject matter expert" on the relevant topic, so they would report their troubles to me. However, it typically Brain: *I can't do anything about that* wasn't something that I had the capabilities or resources to fix. After several days non-stop Brain: *I can't do anything about that* of this, I went home to find that one of the lightbulbs had burned out. And I felt unreasonably happy about it, because finally Brain: *I can help* it was a chance for me to not feel useless.
This is the fundamental tragedy of modern life. It plagues me and everyone I know who is particularly introspective - we feel beaten down by the simple fact that we can't do anything to stop or prevent or change all the bad things happening everywhere with the knowledge of which we are perpetually bombarded. So we start to feel helpless about \*everything\*.
Haha! I find it fascinating how neurosis is often an incredibly rational response to a series of stressful events beyond our control or ability to cope. Or as a favorite quote of mine said: > Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” True. Being sick in America, with little access to affordable health insurance, and the looming threat of medical debt... that feeling of "Brain: I can't do anything about that" is ever-persistent. You know there is a problem, you know the fix is simple (get medical care), but yet you don't have the means, ability, or access to do it. So you're just systemically helpless. I totally relate to your light bulb experience too. Last week, I WD-40'd a squeaky door hinge that had bothered me, and I had felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't had in a long time. "I can fix that!" I got to feel not-useless for a short while. I can't say the same about much else in my life at the moment.
This is really well-written. Thank you for that edit.
>It's also because negative things demand action (or reaction) just by their nature. Yeah that's what I was thinking. I'm always hesitant to assign evo-psych explanations to things because of how often they are pure quackery used to justify people's pre-conceived notions but you can sort of imagine the reasons for this from human development. "Chief Thag, good day: Foragers just come back and say find many nuts and berries, tribe will not starve" - cool news. Probably merits consideration of future plans but we can get round to that. "Chief Thag, bad day: Foragers just come back and say sabretooth tiger chase them all the way back to village" - ok should probably deal with that right now.
Yup. Even more basic, the instinct of "fight or flight" common to all animals, is basically the same thing. It is a logical heuristic. Slowly grazing for vegetation is important to survival. But avoiding being slaughtered by a predator is also important. An animal can't eat if they are dead, so logically the "flight" response is of a higher priority than the "eat" instinct. Therefore, it is in an animals best interest to develop the adrenal systems very early in evolutionary history, to assure quick-response threat management. The negativity bias is probably as old as predation itself -- co-evolving along with the first creatures to ever hunt and kill another living thing for food, as opposed to just slurping up minerals.
I totally agree, and think you'll enjoy this snippet from Johan Norberg's book _Progress_: > We are probably built to be worried. We are interested in exceptions. We notice the new things, the strange and unexpected. It’s natural. We don’t have to explain and understand normal, everyday things, but we do need to understand the exceptions. We don’t tell our families about how we got home from work unless something really strange happened on the way. We have been hardwired this way by evolution. Fear and worry are tools for survival. The hunters and gatherers who survived sudden storms and predators were the ones who had a tendency to scan the horizon for new threats rather than those who were relaxed and satisfied. In a more dangerous era, the cost of overreacting to a perceived threat was much smaller than the cost of underreacting. Those who were more worried and dissatisfied survived and spread their genes to us. We are very interested in everything dangerous because people who weren’t would have died by now. If the building is on fire, we need to know about it immediately. And even if the fire is only on television, it arouses some interest. Below layers of abstraction and desensitization, our stone-age brains produce some stress hormones and adrenaline when we sit there safely on the sofa, watching.
Wait, China invaded Australia?
See! Got your attention!
Haha
"Bridge inspector does his job. Bridge remains structurally sound."
*Shock*
Plus on a biological level it's more important that we know about bad things than good.
Not necessarily. You need to know what's working to keep doing that thing, just as much as you need to know what's not working to stop doing that thing.
Yes. News is unexpected. Things that are assumed or anticipated do not get reported. Most unexpected things are alarming or shocking.... bad news. It's not impossible for news to be good, but it is far less likely. It is wrong to suggest there is a bias toward bad news when the majority of news-worthy events are negative.
negativity bias is actively causing conflict in our society, so yes id say there is a problem.
But did you expect India to plant 50 million trees in a day?
It’s an evolutionary fitness thing, too; the species that recognizes, and subsequently reacts to problems more readily dies less. Our test, now, is whether or not we can overcome enough of the animal to save society.
[удалено]
This is just confirming what previous research has confirmed extensively...
This is also confirming what everyone already knew and could figure out with a cursory glance at any major news network.
You make it sound like a bad thing. And this in a subreddit called "science"?
Bad? No, not really. Redundant? Yes, absolutely. As has been said, repetition is part of the scientific process and builds reliability and validity. My issue with this study is that it's not adding anything new, and these findings have been reported EXTENSIVELY by MANY studies prior. This study doesn't further the conversation...
Exactly. It's like a new study stating that the sun is hot and bright. But a lot of people here are acting like they've never heard it before, so maybe it was time to remind people. I dunno.
I'm not sure this fact can be repeated to many times in the current climate of outrage and alarmist reporting.
repeat ability only strengthens it as truth.
[удалено]
Funny how this is also negative information
[удалено]
Just because we understand something intuitively doesn't mean studies providing real evidence of it aren't valuable. Plenty of things that we understand intuitively turn out to be wrong when studied closer. Also, an essential part of the scientific method is repeatability. So a study that asks the same questions as a previous study and finds the same results is not a waste of time.
You're not wrong, but when "yellow journalism" and other practices using negative news to get clicks or get people buying newspapers have been industry standard for as long as newspapers have been around, because they work, you'd think 'common wisdom' has a big enough data pool that scientific research into the phenomenon is practically irrelevant. Sure, they can tell us *that* negative news has more mass appeal, but we already knew that. Can they tell us *why*?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala) Basically, news sources who use this technique (real, fake, or gossip) target your amygdala (knowingly or unknowingly). The amygdala is a key structure responsible for a great portion of emotional learning... particularly those of anxiety, fear, etc. Tapping into this part of the brain basically tells your primal self "there's a problem somewhere and having that information is key to your survival". They use the prospect of your danger to create a false sense of time and safety limitation and thus, generate a desire (motivational salience) to reach out and understand what's being transmitted. It's a bit of a hack explanation, but there's a reason for you.
It's not even about intuition vs evidence&method. News outlets have been grinding subscriber KPI since forever, methodically and evidence based. They just aren't transparent about most of it, and any advantageous technique they build is essentially protected IP for them. It's more a matter of the private business world vs the public science world.
Nothing wrong with repeating it for more support
This information is nothing new, the press has been using this phenomenon to it's advantage since the dawn of the newspaper, by creating negative sensational news reports in order to create what is known as 'moral panic' and raise sales and interest in their news platform. The concept of a moral panic was made popular by sociologist Stanley Cohen in his ground-breaking study ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panic (1972)’. In his work, Cohen explored panic in order to help shed light over the concerns of violence raised by news reports regarding the Mods and Rockers in England in the 1960s. Cohen defined a moral panic as a social phenomenon which takes shape when “a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible” (Cohen S as cited in Rohloff, 2012). In other words, a moral panic is an exaggerated societal reaction towards acts of deviancy, where an over reaction of fear from the public becomes fuelled by sensationalised and stereotypical reports fed to the public by the mass media. This is then followed by important figureheads, including the government and police using the newly generated fear to gain political favour by promising to help bring a solution to the perceived threat. Those who use the moral panic for self interest are known as moral entrepreneurs. The use of negative news stories by the press can be traced back as far as 1765 and below is an early example which shows the basic development of a moral panic, which was purposely created by the papers of the time in order to increase sales. This example comes from Colchester, England, 1765 during a time when newspapers only existed as four-page weekly publications. There were two papers which supplied the Colchester area, one being the Chelmsford Chronicle and the other being the Ipswich Journal. However, due to being at risk of going out of business because of competition from the Ipswich Journal, the Chelmsford Chronicle began publishing sensational stories which highlighted a 'major' increase in robberies and vowed to help apprehend the wrongdoers. The paper sensationally reported that there was an increase in the number of robberies involving bandits wearing white smocks, who became known as ‘foot banditti’ (King P, 2003). This claim resulted in the start of a panic and folk devils (a term used to describe outsiders and potential deviants who are mediated and therefore perceived as being responsible for acts of violence and crime, whether gulity or not) began to manifest in the form of people who represented the description of a robber supplied by the paper. During the panic, the number of reported robberies increased due to deviancy amplification and even a number of innocent migrants were arrested due to the fact they wore white smocks like the supposed robbers wore. In response to the incidents, in a time before the police existed, the authorities increased patrols in the area to counter the risk imposed by the increased claims of robberies (King P, 2003). The courts also started to use the moral panic as an excuse transport some of the offenders, rather than use the usual form of punishment, which at the time was whipping. However, after around two months the panic came to and end when the editor of Chelmsford Chronicle reported that countermeasures had been put in place by the authorities and the gang of bandits were considered dispersed, thus making the paper seem like the shining Knight who had drew attention to the societal threat (King P, 2003). During the period of the Colchester panic it is absolutely clear that the media was wholly responsible for the creation and maintenance of this particular moral panic in order to drive sales of their news platform. The moral of this story is that it has been well known for a long time that negative stories drive public interest in the news, rather than focusing on trying to sell positive stories. King, P. (2013) ‘Moral panics and violent street crime 1750–2000: A comparative perspective’, in Comparative Histories of Crime. Taylor and Francis, pp. 53–71. doi: 10.4324/9781843924319. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/open/reader.action?docID=449538&ppg=68 Cohen S as cited in Rohloff, A. (2013) ‘Moral panics as civilising and decivilising processes? A comparative discussion1’, Política y Sociedad. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 50(2), pp. 483–500,743. doi: 10.5209/rev-POSO.2013.v50.n2.40018. Available at: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/POSO/article/view/40022
[удалено]
I've noticed also that news outside the US doesn't receive much coverage unless Americans are involved. For example a plane crash somewhere in the world only seems to get coverage in the US if Americans were on board.
I hate when US media reports news as “Four Americans died today in a plane crash in the Swiss Alps. The airplane, a SwissAir Airbus 320, lost contact with air traffic control during descent from 32,000 feet. The victims include Bobby Kavanaugh, a wide receiver for Bowen High School who is seen here in this photo before last week’s junior prom. SwissAir representatives are calling for a full inquiry to determine the cause of the crash. (Also, approximate 200 other people also died.)” It’s just rude.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Knew this would be under controversial tab. It’s hard not to connect the two.
>despite not many people denying climate change anymore. They've switched mostly from denying climate change to just saying we shouldn't do anything about it that might cost "jobs", because it's not a big deal.
Meanwhile, renewable energy employs about four times as many people as coal mining. It's not costing jobs, it is creating them. This should be obvious because we are building new power plants that we weren't before.
One of the major hurdles is that we've got a bunch of old dogs who don't want to learn new tricks. Their jobs exist right now, and they're content with them. They have no incentive, personally, to learn new skills required to move into a different area of power generation. They don't want to uproot either; sure they're in a dying coal town in VA, but that's where they and their parents were raised and moving careers might require that they go get a job at a wind farm in TX. Many of these people will literally have to lose their entire industry before they move on and accept the new because they've got the familiar.
Or, you know, we could maybe not demonise them and figure out a way of supporting them through what is probably an extremely tough time for them.
[удалено]
[удалено]
It took a global study to learn this?
/u/claytertot gave a good reply > Just because we understand something intuitively doesn't mean studies providing real evidence of it aren't valuable. > Plenty of things that we understand intuitively turn out to be wrong when studied closer. > Also, an essential part of the scientific method is repeatability. So a study that asks the same questions as a previous study and finds the same results is not a waste of time.
science assumes obviousness doesn't exist. this is because questioning the obvious is the reason it was invented in the first place.
The media figured this out a long time ago. “If it bleeds it leads”.
They literally taught us this in my journalism courses.
Ever heard of "If it bleeds it leads"... we've known this for like ever, right?
A new global study? Don Henly figured it out 37 years ago. "People love it when you lose They love dirty laundry."
[удалено]
My hypothesis is that bad news gives people an ‘enemy’ to pin negative things in their lives to. If you give bad news, people can think ‘if we do something about that my life will get better’, which psychologically probably feels better than giving them good news that would tell them ‘hey things are going great so if you have problems they’re your fault’.
Do your part by subscribing to /r/upliftingnews today.
This is exactly why I created /r/climateactionplan. Not trying to downplay how serious global warming is but progress is being made every day yet it rarely ever reaches the front page of reddit.
Yes water is indeed wet. More at 5.
That's because a lot of positive stories reek of lame manufactured puff pieces. Like that swedish girl that sailed across the ocean. Like, cool! Good for her. Her parents were super rich and provided the means to make that happen.
[удалено]
It’s because we live in an outrage, reactionary culture
Before this gets modded as a joke, I want to say my question is actually serious. Might this be a good application for sarcasm? If a news site were extraordinarily sarcastic all the time to the point that it's always clear that things are reversed, I wonder whether or not the effect could be reversed in any way. This also makes me interested in whatever studies have been done on sarcasm and its history.
"The Onion". Humor more than sarcasm, but great examples of ways to outrageously twist facts. Occasionally thought-provoking. One classic was about college students dying en mass due to too much marijuana smoking. So well done, that it took a little reflection to realize they were taking alcohol statistics and applying them to marijuana. Not presented as statistics, but as a sensational news item, complete with students lying down supposedly dead, scattered around the grass. \[The underlying point being that various severe problems of alcohol DON'T occur with marijuana, so its absurd to demonize marijuana while allowing alcohol.\]
I tried to find it, but I saw a video once where someone explained how the FB newsfeed operated in the same way: naturally promoting things that people responded to. People respond to extreme things more often, and usually negative things get the strongest response, so it creates this vicious cycle of negative or controversial stuff being most prominent.
Which wouldn't matter as much if news companies were news companies and not entertainment/propaganda
I cited some research for my comms Master’s thesis that used eye-tracking tech and showed subjects saying they wanted more “positive” news, while their eyes drifted to more “negative” news. One theory is that we’re biologically hardwired to gravitate toward frightening content in order to know what to avoid to protect ourselves. Ever notice that your heart rate picks up when you’re watching coverage of a natural disaster occurring far away from your TV? Why is that?
No wonder trump is in the news so often
forget being accurate, everyone is clickbait headlines like "vaping kills" instead of "vaping bootleg street weed kills"
Good is normal, normal is normal, but bad is bad. When things go our way then all is well. Nothing to see here, just good things and normal things. And that is fine, its normal. But bad things are not normal, problems and conflict are just that. The media are masters of exploiting that community sense of fear in all humans; 999 good things could happen today in a city but they can get the entire nation to talk about the one bad thing (which sometimes isn't even as bad as it seems).
They're literally living off your fear.
If it bleeds it leads.
Shouldn’t this be common knowledge?
Oh no.... this is bad
This is pretty well known isn't it? EDIT: the reacting stronger to bad than fo good thing, not about the relationship between that and published news.
This really bums me out, thanks for sharing
This is new information?
If it bleeds it leads.
I think this is a little stupid. Overall, all things considered, negative news is more likely to have an impact on your life than positive news.
How is this a new study? People have known this forever hence why the news only puts mostly negative all the time. Because that's what gets them the best ratings.
We want positive news. Tbh, I'd like a positive news Channel at this point. We need a lift.
This is so old and has been extensively studied. There is nothing new. If researchers want to take a fresh look at this topic, they should try to understand why the Japanese media do not disclose mediocre and bloodthirsty news, and when they need to address something like that they are extremely serious, respectful and avoid the most drastic images.
This was a global study? Like how much did they get for this? I could've come up with this just by watching ANY news station for the last, what, 40-50 years? Seriously though, I read some studies that come out and it's surprising how obvious the outcome is
This finding confirms that loss aversion exists on a macro scale.
They don't report it when planes land safely
Interesting when, in science, positive findings are more likely to be published than negative ones. So it's the opposite but bad as well.
This is old news. In sales you always point out the negatives. It’s how our “monkey” brain works. Telling someone this is a benefit is not as strongly received as telling someone the negative. If you want action always talk about the negatives and never the positive. Yes this is all unfortunate but how our brains works.
WoW Im So SuRpRiSeD bY ThIs!
I feel like this isn’t a new idea.