Chicken or Egg? Investigating the Real Reason for Bad News' Popularity
Figure 1. Family watching television,1958.
Chicken or Egg? Investigating the Real Reason for Bad News' Popularity
by Vicky Oldham, November 10, 2021
The relationship of bad news to the proliferation of violence in society is a commonly held assumption. Forms of mass communication, particularly visual media like television, have been blamed for a steep rise in violence, crime, and delinquency over the past few decades. Emphasizing the media's role in promoting bad news, Johnson (1997) echoes an adage famous in newsrooms: "If it bleeds, it leads" (p. 210). Media organizations have long been accused of pandering to base human instincts, whether through fictional portrayals of violence or by excessive coverage of crime, terror attacks, protests, or war. Although television news receives the lion's share of criticism due to its powerful audio-visual effects, frightening accounts have been part of human culture for centuries, whether news or fiction. The question about which comes first, the chicken or the egg, easily applies to the "bad news versus viewer demand" debate. Does media create the market for more bad news, or is it simply serving what viewers already want? Also, what is the actual effect of violent news on human behavior? Does bad news coverage promote unfounded fear and violence, or does it serve another lesser-described and surprising purpose?
Investigating the range of opinions by researchers striving to answer the same question is fascinating. Conclusions differ, but most experts concur that "art imitates life" when the lines between fiction and non-fiction in media blur. For example, fiction posing as news potentially leads to unintended consequences. The 1930s radio drama, The War of the Worlds, narrated by Orson Welles, convinced entire communities that an attack by Martians from outer space was imminent (Welles, 1938). Multi-city panic ensued, followed by public outrage after learning it was just a radio performance. The following day, Welles "heard reports of mass stampedes, of suicides, and of angered listeners threatening to shoot him on sight" (Schwartz, 2015, para. 2). With this history in mind, one may rest assured that media has the potential to cause harm. Still, a valid argument exists regarding the cause and effect of violence in media, and the truth may be more complex than the simple formula—media does this, and people do that.
Despite disagreements among experts and the public about the cause and effect of television violence, most understand that people don't watch a slasher movie and automatically become serial killers. However, more questions than answers persist regarding the relationship of media to real-life violence. Does graphic depiction of bad news cause more crime, or is it merely reflecting the world in which we live? Do people feel somehow energized by violence, or is there more likely a subconscious human need to feel informed about current affairs, even if terrifying, to feel a sense of control in a threatening environment? The desire to witness crime and violence from a safe distance may connect more to human survival instinct than gratuitous attraction, revealing a kind of atavism from eons of natural selection.
Consuming bad news about crime, violence, and war seems to mesh with the built-in human need to identify and understand sources of danger. It is common knowledge that people rush from their homes to assemble at the scene of a neighborhood house fire or the site of a police incident. Back in the 1970s, people bought police scanners in droves to learn, moment by moment, what was happening in their neighborhood. People yearn to know, firsthand, if their environment is safe. An article in Psychology Today by clinical psychologist Dr. Sarb Johal (2021) supports this idea, adding, "Negative information alerts to potential dangers and we need to pay attention to it to avoid bad outcomes" (para. 7). This oft-observed human behavior suggests one motivation that drives media to serve up bad news.
How does this aspect of human nature, expressing a desire for negative information, manifest? One answer emerges by studying human evolution. Imagine the world of early humans. Neanderthal Number One is fast asleep in a cozy cave. He hears a commotion just outside his rocky abode; something is busy knocking over the campfire and pillaging his provisions. Instead of jumping up to identify the source, or he turns dreamily in his cuddly animal skin bed and falls back to sleep. Neanderthal Number Two experiences the same situation. Instead of returning to sleep, he reacts quickly and springs out of bed just in time to behold a giant cave bear hovering over his home. Immediately, he bars the entrance with a huge boulder. Sadly, one can imagine the bear's tasty meal at the failure of Neanderthal Number One to act. The human "need to know" may be as simple as this evolutionary connection, a scenario selecting humans for alertness to danger. Today, watching bad news from a distance, we "witness" danger up close while knowing the "monster" is effectively isolated where it can do no harm, providing a measure of cathartic relief.
The study by Johnson (1996) examined the proliferation of bad news in television and media and asked whether "TV news overemphasizes such news way out of proportion to what is actually happening" (p. 209). He pointed out that news directors were quick to defend coverage of crime and violence, justifying its value to the public. In contrast, his research and research by others concluded that crime reporting is "excessive and that frequency of reporting bears no resemblance to actual incidence" (Johnson, 1996, as cited in Garofalo, 1981, Gerbner, 1986; Graber, 1979). Multiple studies from the 1970s to the 1990s found that crime was rising, and the media was to blame (Johnson, 1996). Today, in 2021, one could argue that technological advances, including improved tools used by law enforcement (i.e., surveillance and forensics), development of the internet, and the instantaneous character and reach of information in the digital age, may account for the perceived increase in crime.
Compared to major media sources at the height of airwave television broadcasting (once dominated by networks NBC, CBS, and ABC), today's social media, internet, and cable news greatly complicate the mass communication landscape. Flashback to the 1980s. The era's leading researchers of television violence like Gerbner (1986) and Garofalo (1981) could never have imagined the revolution in news delivery generated by social media. Their research blamed network television for distorting reality by selectively advancing bad news. Besides the internet and social media, what would they think about contemporary cable shows like Investigation Discovery (Discovery, Inc., 2008-present) and Forensic Files (Dowling, 1996-present)? These top-rated true crime programs use a narrative version of reporting that, compared to television news in the Johnson study, is like bad news "on steroids." Researcher Kelli Boling from the University of South Carolina notes, "When you watch the nightly newscast, you're watching true crime." Comparing news to full-length, true crime shows, she adds, "...what makes the genre special is that it turns those facts into a narrative, a really strong story" (Chan, 2020, para. 11). The episodic format usually covers stories of murder or unsolved violent crimes and is known to draw binge-watching fans by the millions, especially women (Shepherd, 2015). Although there is ample controversy about these programs, there is no consistent evidence that they encourage more violence. In fact, the opposite may be true as they demonstrate new ways criminals are caught and convicted using DNA technologies and surveillance methods unavailable until just a few years ago. Most disturbing is that true crime reports about murder run back-to-back, almost 24 hours a day, and it's rare to see the same story twice. Violent crime does seem to be more common than ever, but perhaps crime in 2021 is more easily identified, and law enforcement is better equipped to catch criminals.
It is remarkable to find that women form the majority of consumers of true crime stories. According to Counseling News, there is, bizarrely, a positive side to why women are the primary followers of true crime content (Murray, 2021). Included in the points listed are "true crime stories can educate women about how to cope with scary situations and distant threats. They can teach them practical tips and survival techniques that might prevent them from being victimized themselves" and "women like to see justice prevail" (para. 7). Such observations help validate television news editors' assertions that bad news is not without some redeeming cultural value.
Finally, an important lesson to be learned by researching the cause-and-effect, "chicken or egg first" question regarding bad news in media, particularly television and its enthusiastic viewership, is that its cumulative effects on behavior may prove either harmful or beneficial. No single point of view remains uncontested. Although many studies demonstrate that some people may become more fearful or trend toward violence after excessive viewing, a more positive takeaway may also be true: that future crime is potentially averted because many people, especially women, are made aware of the potential dangers in certain situations, and alert to signs they may not have previously considered.
References
Chan, M. (2020, April 24). Real people keep getting re-traumatized. The human cost of binge-watching true crime series. Time. https://time.com/5825475/true-crime-victim-families/
Discovery, Inc. (2008-present). Investigation discovery [TV series]. Warner Media. https://www.investigationdiscovery.com
Dowling, P. (1996-present). Forensic files [TV series]. Medstar Television. https://www.forensicfiles.com
Garofalo, J. (1981). Crime and the mass media: A selective review of research. Journal of Research
in Crime and Delinquency, 319-350.
Gerbner, G. (1986). Violence and terror in the mass media: Report #102. Paris: UNESCO.
Graber, D. (1979). Is crime news coverage excessive? Journal of Broadcasting, 29(3), 81-92.
Johal, S. (2021, April 9). Do Americans prefer bad news? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/crisis-earth/202104/do-americans-prefer-bad-news
Johnson. (1996). Bad news revisited: The portrayal of violence, conflict, and suffering on television news. Peace and Conflict, 2(3), 201–216. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327949pac0203_2
Murray, W. (2021, July 13). Why do people like true crime before bedtime? Murder media as a psychological coping strategy. Counseling News. https://thriveworks.com/blog/why-people-like-true-crime-before-bedtime-murder-media-psychological-coping-strategy/
Shepherd, J.E. (2015, August 18). Why are women obsessed with Investigation Discovery’s grisly TV shows? Jezbel. https://jezebel.com/why-are-women-obsessed-with-investigation-discovery-s-g-1724662106
Welles, O. (1938/2014). The war of the worlds: The original October 30, 1938 broadcast. Mercury Theatre Radio Production. https://youtu.be/crPGFZiFjfs
Image References
Baumgarder, E. F. (1958). Family watching television 1958. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Family_watching_television_1958_cropped2.jpg. Creative Commons CC0 1.0.
Comments
Post a Comment