3 minute read
The Media's Use of Fear and Negativity
from WorkLife - Dec 2020
by WorkLife
& The Effect On Your Health
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If you’re unfamiliar with this phrase, it might surprise you to know the source from where it comes; the news media. For many years this singular, salacious phrase has been used as a sort of ‘secret code’ among the people who create our daily news. What it means is that negative news is, in effect, more important than positive, and therefore should be aired first, or ‘lead’ the news cycle.
To better understand why this phrase became popular, it’s important to keep in mind that media organizations, including TV, newspapers, and magazines, are businesses first and foremost. It’s their job to attract viewers and readers because sponsors pay more money for larger audiences. If negative news stories are more popular than positive (and there is vast research showing they are) it only makes good business sense for negative stories to take precedence over positive stories.
Good news might be more pleasant and agreeable but it likely won’t affect us one way or another. Bad news could affect us, personally or financially, and thus we’re more likely to watch or read it to make sure that we’ll be ‘OK’. What Effect Does Constantly Watching Negative News Have On Us as a Society? As we’ve seen, media organizations use negativity and fear as bait, if you will, to lure us into watching their programs and reading their newspapers and magazines. The question of whether this is ethical remains to be seen, but the fact is that it does exact a toll on our mental and physical wellness. Indeed, if fed a constant diet of negative news, our thinking can become quite distorted. Negative news activates three cognitive biases. They include;
What Effect Does Constantly Watching Negative News Have On Us as a Society?
As we’ve seen, media organizations use negativity and fear as bait, if you will, to lure us into watching their programs and reading their newspapers and magazines. The question of whether this is ethical remains to be seen, but the fact is that it does exact a toll on our mental and physical wellness. Indeed, if fed a constant diet of negative news, our thinking can become quite distorted. Negative news activates three cognitive biases. They include;
This is our tendency as a society to focus on negative news more than positive. This in turn causes media outlets to deliver us more negative news, feeding the cycle and creating a ‘Catch-22’ type situation.
This is a tendency to overestimate the frequency and significance of negative news stories. The more we see negative news the more easily we can bring examples of them into our minds, and we start to believe that most of what goes on in the world is negative.
The most damaging tendency, we begin looking for information that confirms that the world is a negative place. The confirmation bias makes it much more difficult for an individual to hear, or be changed by, different and/or more positive perspectives.
These biases, in effect, keep us in a constant state of negativity, which can be psychologically traumatizing over the long-term and physically draining as well. Over time, all 3 of these biases begin to work in concert and change the way we think, see the world and absorb new knowledge. And, again, the confirmation bias can become extremely damaging as we begin to shut out positive influences and/ or reject any news that doesn’t fit our new, negative outlook.
