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Media Psychology

~ Informing, Educating and Influencing

Media Psychology

Tag Archives: Media

Las Vegas Shooting News Coverage – A Perspective

06 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by Melissa Chyba in Advertising, Media Effects, Media Psychology, Psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Advertising, Cookies, Depression, Facebook, Marketing, Media, news coverage

News Man Pic

Last night I received a text from my mom wondering if we should attend the Bruno Mars concert coming up in November. I bought tickets for her birthday this year and we have been excited about attending. What brought on this sudden second guessing? The news coverage of the mass shooting in Las Vegas of course! What happened in Vegas was truly horrible and many are now second guessing how safe it is to attend concerts and other events. While I scrolled through my news feed and perused Facebook, my friends wondered in their posts how such a horrific event could happen. As expected, proponents for tighter gun laws have been in the news which has started a lively debate in my Facebook feed. This post is not about my political views on gun laws, nor is it intended to downplay what has happened. My heart truly goes out to everyone affected. My aim is to bring to light some food for thought as we all absorb the events and news coverage.

The likeliness of being killed in a homicide by a firearm is relatively low compared to other potential causes of death. In 2014 there were 11,008 homicide deaths from a firearm in the U.S. This translates to 3.5 people out of 100,000 or a 0.0035% chance (CDC, 2017). However, firearm homicides are dwarfed in comparison to the top 10 causes of death in 2016 which are as follows:

  • Heart disease: 633,842
  • Cancer: 595,930
  • Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 155,041
  • Accidents (unintentional injuries): 146,571
  • Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 140,323
  • Alzheimer’s disease: 110,561
  • Diabetes: 79,535
  • Influenza and pneumonia: 57,062
  • Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 49,959
  • Intentional self-harm (suicide): 44,193 (CDC, 2017)

Looking at the numbers, we should all be more concerned about lifestyles and choices that directly contribute to heart disease and cancer. So why aren’t stories about the leading causes of death receiving the same amount of media coverage? Because media’s #1 job is to create audiences and anything sensational or out of the ordinary does the best job attracting attention (it is like trying to pass a car crash on the freeway and not look). However, creating audiences is much more hyper targeted than it used to be. News Media companies collect personally identifiable information on our viewing and reading habits through cookies, device IDs and set-top box data to name a few. This data collected is then utilized so they can sell their advertisers the best target audiences across their platforms. For example, Apple’s algorithms know I have recently been following hurricanes since I was in Florida right before Irma. On October 3rd in the “For You” section, there was an article from the Miami Herald about the tropical depression moving towards the Caribbean. Right below that article, an advertisement from Wells Fargo (my bank) was strategically placed. Wells Fargo has my personal information and so does Apple, so they can leverage an intermediary to anonymize and match my data between the companies while remaining privacy compliant. From there my anonymized information is leveraged enabling Wells Fargo to strategically target their advertisement in my Apple news feed. Because the targeting is more precise to the audience, Wells Fargo in theory sees a lift in their ROI and Apple commands higher advertising rates.

While media uses sensational headlines and stories to gain more of our attention, the bad news in the media affects our stress levels. A study on news coverage from the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings increased “acute stress” in students at other universities who followed the happenings in the news media. Furthermore, the more news media on the subject consumed the higher the probability the students would respond with higher degrees of stress symptomology (Fallahi & Lesik, 2009). Constant news negativity can exacerbate our own feelings of sadness and anxiety as well as the severity of how we perceive our own situation (Davey, 2012). A big dose of negative news daily can certainly send me into a spin of constant mobile device checking for updates and an overall pessimistic view that day.

Does this mean we should all turn off the news and not pay attention to what is going on in the world? Of course not, as the news media plays a positive role in society as well. We just all need to remember that News Media’s first priority is to create audiences and react accordingly.

References:

CDC. (2017, March 17). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Assault or Homicide. Retrieved October 6, 2017, from National Center for Health Statistics: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

CDC. (2017, March 17). National Center for Health Statistics Leading Causes of Death. Retrieved October 2017, 2017, from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Davey, G. (2012). Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/why-we-worry/201206/the-psychological-effects-tv-news

Fallahi, C. R., & Lesik, S. A. (2009). The effects of vicarious exposure to the recent massacre at Virginia Tech. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 1(3), 220-230. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0015052

 

 

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Remembering September 11th

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by egoerling in Media Psychology, Psychology, Social Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

flashbulb memory, Media, news coverage, research, September 11

On the eve of this September 11th, I can’t help but pause and reflect on the day that changed the course of American history (therein changing world history). I remember many of the details, most with strong emotion attached to them – calling my husband to make sure he was all right, waking my brother to watch the news with me, gathering with my friends and colleagues to continue to collect any and all information we could. There was a near-palpable collective confusion, fear, anger and sadness that pervaded my personal environment, as well as throughout the nation. There are some memories from that day that are crystalline in their clarity. This memory acuity is known as a flashbulb memory – a memory created from intense emotional arousal at the moment of a significant and, often times, traumatic event. Do you have a flashbulb memory of that day? If so, you’re not alone. Continue reading →

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Children and Internet-Related Concerns

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by Ken S. Heller in Media Effects, Media Literacy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alpha Waves, Cultivation Theory, Culture of fear, Internet, Media, Media Literacy, Psychological Effects

Lynn Schofield Clark’s comment below exemplifies George Gerber’s cultivation theory that states the more time we spend watching televised news and entertainment, the more likely it is that we will perceive the views and claims presented as being reality. Cognitively, our brains slip into Alpha wave dominated patterns when watching TV which are the same wave patterns exhibited when we are close to sleep or hypnotized (a state when one is highly open to suggestion). Continue reading →

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