Media news and mass psychology

[imported_bingobazza]

I have recently moved to a China for a while, and am very struck by news media differences between here and the west.

The western news agencies almost invariable carry stories of things like disasters, shootings, bombs, rapes, legal trials, child abductions etc. Everything is conducive to worry and concern. Michael Moore said something along these lines in 'stupid white men'. Effect, everyone becomes worried and a selfish, a beggar thy neighbour' attitude prevails in most large western cities. Most children have mobile phones so that parents know they are safe, and few play outside without supervision after dark, if at all.

Contrast this with China....the news is censored but very upbeat. Result, everyone is optomistic, happy, content and feels safe. Children play happily on the streets after dark without fear of abduction...something I havent seen since my childhood. They do carry the human interest stories like coal mine collapses, earthquakes etc...but the tone of the news is much more optomistic, even though Im sure murders, rapes, child abductions etc happen here.

While there are many more issues at play here, Im starting to beleive that the news media has a very large role in forming our opinions and feelings about our societies.

Is our western news media making a downward spiral of increasingly violent and generally selfish behaviour a self fulfiling prophesy by continually bombarding us with the images of it? Why is there rarely any good news? Does good news = no news in the west?

Would you allow your government to edit bad news stories (and this is as far as the censorship would go, so that theres no 'slippery slope' argument) and just give you good news every day in your papers and news bulletins, if it meant a much happier, less violent and more caring society?

The argument is not whether it would or not, thats too complex to discuss here, but whether you would trade if the outcome was guaranteed.

Or are you prepared to pay the price of living in a more violent, less caring society, in exchange for knowing all the bad things that are going on?

[Bartman387]

You are asking a trick question.

I answer your question by saying that I do not want my media censored. You then reply by asking me how I can say that knowing that it will mean more violence possibly done unto me and my family. I however cannot come back with the best answer because you won't allow because it is too complex.

However, the media covering violent and negative news stories does not cause society to go into a downward spiral of increasing violence and isolation towards eachother. The coverage only creates the appearance that that is what is happening. You need to realize TV news, especially local and national broadcast news, is not so much about informing the public than it is about ratings. And it has been proven that what grabs peoples attention and gets them to tune is the negative, not the positive.

Also, is good news really news anyhow?? Aside from good news in the business sector, how do you report that there were no murders today?

Tom Brokaw: And on that note it should be said that the BTK Killer did not kill again today. And now Al Roker with the weather...

The news reports what happens, if no violent crimes happen, just nothing is reported, which leads to a selective memory, you only notice when a violent crime is mentioned because it is hard to report that that it didn't. However, here I will admit I dont think you often see exposes on why crime is down and how it happened. However you will see them when crime is up, why it happened and what should be done. So again you get back to the fact the the first story would result in a last place rating ranking for the news station that produced it. While the second, negative, story would grab a massive audience. Thus resulting in more of the negative and less of the positive.

I my have went in circles here, but I hope I sufficiently answered the question that was too complex to answer.

[imported_bingobazza]

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However, the media covering violent and negative news stories does not cause society to go into a downward spiral of increasing violence and isolation towards eachother.

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I am open to convincing that this statement is true, but remain unconvinced either way. Convince me....
Bingo

[pokerjoker]

yup...trick question and not enough info..would this be a utopia w/o the news as the question implies...if that would be the case there actually wouldnt be bad news to report. too many holes.

[mosdef]

interesting post, bingo. i happen to disagree, but i think i disagree because of my opinions, not because i think you're flat out wrong and i am right. but i'll throw a few more ideas out there.

1. the part of your post that disturbs me is the idea that in china people are happier because they are sheltered from the bad things in life. this is an "ignorance is bliss" idea, and i think it is a very, very bad path to go down. IMHO, the quality of life in the west is much higher than in china, and if what you are saying is true then the population has been "tricked into happiness", if you know what i mean. i think this is terrible.

2. IMHO the popular news media in the west is not really a news media, it's an entertainment media. i acknowledge that this is far too broad a statement to apply to all western news media, but i feel that the need to sell a sensational story drives reporting of "bad" news.

3. interestingly, most of the people I know don't watch the news. they pick up on major stories through word of mouth, but that's about it.

4. i live in canada where our major news network is the CBC, a government sponsored news organization. it's an interesting comparison, because the CBC is kind of 1/2 way between the US open media and the chinese controlled media. if you watch the evening news on the CBC and then watch the evening news on CNN, the difference is laughable. the sensationalist, entertainment style CNN news is clearly meant to be a consumed product competing against other networks, meant to appeal to (or should i say appease?) the US viewers. our basically competition-free news is WAY more balanced and WAY more low-key.

i'd be interested in your comments on these ideas.

[imported_bingobazza]

The BBC did a documentary comparing the differences in Canadian and US news broadcasting a while back and concluded that the calmer news stories produced a calmer society. They went out undercover in Canada and bought guns, drugs and tried to do everything that you can do in the US, and did it all. They interviewed people from both sides and concluded that the differences in anxiety and violence levels were contributed to by how opinions are formed in the US and Canada about their respective societies by the news media. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to get any arguments about this point. I thought that it would be pretty obvious.

I think that’s a good way to put it. The Chinese have been tricked into being happy. Don’t get me wrong, the news here isn’t a joke, by no means...it is informative, international, well debated and it tackles the key issues in the region. But it also tries to be uplifting, and that is the key difference, and the basis of its censorship, as far as I can tell. I suppose my question is whether or not that’s a bad thing? Personally I’m not convinced it is when the alternatives are examined.

Coming from Northern Ireland, I have lived with news censorship all my life during the troubles and probably understand it better than many. We had British News broadcast in Northern Ireland and Irish News broadcast in the Republic Of Ireland. We had access to both channels. The same incident would frequently cause totally polarised news bulletins. The hunger strikes and the shooting dead of 3 unarmed IRA suspects in Gibraltar are 2 extremely good examples of this.

In fact, everyone lives with censorship...its called editing...even in this forum...its just that the people who make the decisions have different agendas. Ever seen 'Good morning Vietnam’? This was politically motivated editing or a political bias, and maybe a feel good bias as well, designed to keep the troops spirits up and tell them what the powers that be wanted them to hear.

In Northern Ireland, the news was censored by the UK government during the troubles...'we care about how we look and won't broadcast (or will water down) anything that makes us or our military operations look bad. We will also deny airtime to people who we don’t agree with politically'. Political bias.

In the US and most of the west, the news is censored by the broadcasters, sometimes guided loosely by an ombudsman or regulator...'we care about our ratings more than we care about you and will broadcast anything that increases our ratings with little regard to the impact on society, until the regulator steps in. Our research has shown that you like sensational and violent news, so we will broadcast that, not because that is the best news or because it is best for society, but because it helps us, the broadcaster, to achieve our business objectives. Ratings bias.

In China, the state censors the news...'we care about our citizens, and not ratings, and will make every effort to give our citizens uplifting news about their country every day while conveying the major national and international news as well.' Feel good bias (but you could argue that keeping the country happy and calm is also a political motive here).

If anyone in the west thinks their news isn’t censored along the same lines as the news in Northern Ireland was...think about the war in Iraq when tens of thousands of civilians were killed and this was glossed over, certainly in the British media.

The glossing over of the civilian deaths in Iraq sent chills down my spine all over again, just like in Ireland because of the way it was censored, maybe by a mix of ratings bias and political muscle, but on a much much bigger scale. I'll bet dollars to donuts that the Iraq civilian death story was headline news throughout the Arab and Muslim world, but was barely mentioned here in the west, and the coalition casualties are glossed over in a similar fashion now in the UK, because they cause political embarrassment during an unpopular war. The families of the dead soldiers and civilians sure as hell know about it. -ev for ratings and politicians though.

I’m sure the broadcasting bias has many other agendas as well...but it is biased, and nowhere in the world that I can think off is it uncensored from some angle.

Even the financial media, which you expect to be unbiased, is totally biased and sensational, with a subtle under current of buy and sell, not buy and hold, diversify, watch your portfolio...YOU NEED US, its dangerous without our guidance.... ratings again.

Assuming that the ratings bias causes a more violent and anxious society, as was concluded in the BBC documentary I mentioned about Canada and the US, and as I have concluded about China from my first hand experiences.

That being said, maybe I should have asked if you would prefer a ratings or a feel good bias in the editing of your news broadcasting. I think that’s what I was really trying to get at...



Bingo

[imported_bingobazza]

No One???

(Note to the observent: this post is written with a suburban Torontonian bias)

Mass media sometimes can lead to serious misconceptions about the nature of the society in which you live. There was a study that ran about 4 years ago in Canada that compared the differences in crime in major cities over a one year period. Although crime levels had dropped, most people that were surveyed were under the impression that crime levels had in fact risen. This was due to the amount of crime reported in the media. Seems that in actuality, it was the paranoia levels that went up.

The fact is that there are dangers and risks associated with being alive. Disease, crime, and poor economy are a natural part of existence. Many people fear death to such an extent that they will do anything to avoid it. It is these individuals that drive the media to report these dangers.

"Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies, but we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world. No! Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them."
--from Waking Life

[Buccaneer]

Bingo, you are asking to many questions. I would rather be free to listen to what ever news I choose and decide for myself who is lying.

[imported_bingobazza]

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I would rather be free to listen to what ever news I choose and decide for myself who is lying.

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I think that the 'freedom to choose' is an illusion in many countries. The choice has already been made for you by the editoral bias of the government or broadcaster. They edit the news from a ratings bias, a poltiical bias or a feel good bias, among other things...depending on where you live. And it isnt that they're lying as such, they're choosing for you what you hear about your society, based on their agenda and their objectives. Therefore before you get the news, the choice has already been made, and you werent consulted. Wheres the freedom in that?

Bingo