Why do we demand negative news? This article from Reason (there are others out there) talks about how much more negative coverage of Covid 19 is in the United States than the rest of the world. Lately I have also noticed that scientists and researchers are quite positive about moving past the virus while media is drumming up fears of another wave. Why do we do this to ourselves? And we do do this to ourselves, they only post what they know we will click on despite persistent fears of conspiracy and mind control we actually control them.
āIf it bleeds, it leads.ā did not come from thin air and has never gone away.
Ignoring good news can lead to missing out, ignoring bad news can actively hurt you. So people pay more attention to bad news. Thatās why every station has some version of āRed Alertā weather taht is badly overused.
I donāt have a wide view of foreign media sources, but my German friend says things are very negative there right now in terms of COVID perspective. She said all they have left is sarcasm.
For a simplistic answer: When you take the view that āyou have āa lotā to loseā, you tend to live more in fear of things that are going to take it.
Fear would sell everywhere. We, with profit-driven TV stations, just latched on hard to it. And TV stations realize that if they donāt go negative, the TV station next door will, and that TV station will get higher ratings instead of themselves.
Oh, and I donāt know if the expensive article says so, but weāve been watching (not really demanding, since we now have remotes) negative news for decades.
at the beginning of this pandemic, FoxNews dowplayed it as no big deal and no worse than the flu. is that somehow better? Iād like realistic news in terms of COVID. the negative news about it was somewhat right.
also, canāt read that article on this browser without subscribing to the NY Times.
oh as for negative news otherwise that doesnāt really affect me in any way, iād like to not know about it. like, people who post a video on fb of someone being tortured to death or animals being abused. thatās gonna get you unfriended.
This chick is my new favorite person. itās about dealing with 9/11, but this is some great advice for dealing with news now. donāt tell me that this isnāt a real person just because itās the onion. sheās fantastic!
In the NYT article the researchers speculate that we are more consumer driven, because we have less public funding.
The NYT writer speculates vaguely that they are just better journalists (lol) because we waste less time spouting rainbows and patting ourselves on the butts.
There has been a lot of evidence given in the thread that we DO demand negative news, and that news providers respond to that demand. The OP asked about WHY we demand it, though. I donāt see where that has been addressed yet.
Hereās another article that touches on the mediaās negativity & its effect on the publicās perception of risk.
There have been headlines recently that āRepublicans tend to underestimate COVID risks, while Democrats overestimate themā (e.g. Political leanings impact pandemic fact perception, poll finds :: WRAL.com), but that Gallup poll on hospitalization above shows that, regardless of party affiliation/leanings, Americans tend to grossly overestimate the risks associated with Covid. Thatās a direct result of the āinformationā theyāre getting from officials and media & has an effect on public policy & peopleās behaviors.
Is it the case that Americans demand it more than other nationalities, or perhaps is it possible that awareness of specific instances of tabloid/shock media fades as you cross national or linguistic boundaries?
Iād also suspect that the relative size of the American market as compared to (say) the Finnish market might provide American negative news/ānewsā sources a greater opportunity to capture viewers and therefore advertising revenue than smaller-market counterparts, as well as the potential for more such sources fueling extra competition.