tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/media-studies-7519/articlesMedia studies – The Conversation2024-01-22T21:21:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2193572024-01-22T21:21:50Z2024-01-22T21:21:50ZThree trailblazing women in media who’ve been forgotten – until now<p>Men have had their empires. Everyone else has had the hushed, forgotten, erased or overlooked stories of the scientists, witches, explorers, artists, writers and scholars who didn’t fit the mould. </p>
<p>In the field of media studies, there are researchers, academics, journalists and public intellectuals who, often due to their gender, race or politics, have been ignored and marginalised in favour of recognising the “founding fathers” of the field.</p>
<p>Finally, these ghosts are making their way back into academic books, articles, teaching materials and popular culture. Our <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781913380748/the-ghost-reader/#:%7E:text=The%20Ghost%20Reader%3A%20Recovering%20Women's,cultural%20studies%2C%20and%20communication%20studies.">new book</a>, co-edited with Carol Stabile, reclaims the original ideas, essays and scholarship of 19 women and provides an introduction by experts in the field, along with samples of their work. From that 19, here are three we think are particularly worth knowing about. </p>
<h2>Film theory</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/filmhistory.27.1.135">Mae D. Huettig</a> from Los Angeles was the first economist to explain how the US film industry functioned as a vertically integrated factory that was less about dreams and glamour and more about vulgar capitalism. <a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9781512812381/economic-control-of-the-motion-picture-industry/">Her book</a>, Economic Control of the Motion Picture Industry: A Study in Industrial Organization (1944), revealed how Hollywood movie studios produced films cheaply and used their own network of cinemas to screen them. </p>
<p>Huettig argued that Hollywood studios, just like automobile or coal factories, used the same economic model as any industry – dominate the competition and corner the market. Her work ultimately became a part of the 1948 federal case, the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/334/131/">Paramount Decree</a>. This landmark case addressed the practice of film studios owning cinemas and controlling their film distribution. The decree ended the vertically integrated Hollywood studio system. Production studios could no longer own the cinemas that screened their films, and cinemas were no longer beholden to one studio only. </p>
<p>After a few semesters teaching at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and working at a think tank, Huettig became an activist. Following the <a href="https://crdl.usg.edu/events/watts_riots">1965 Watts rebellion</a>, a civil rights uprising in Los Angeles, she trained minority youths on how to use film to monitor police misconduct. She also campaigned against school racial segregation, police abuse and corruption.</p>
<h2>The importance of images</h2>
<p><a href="https://archives.nypl.org/mss/6197">Romana Javitz</a> from New York was the first librarian to develop an organised, browsable collection of pictures that anyone with a library card could check out from the <a href="https://www.nypl.org">New York Public Library</a> (NYPL). </p>
<p>As the NYPL superintendent of the picture collection between 1928 and 1968, Javitz and her staff collected as many items as they could by cutting out images from old books and magazines. These included photos, paintings, ads, pop art and images of everyday people, places and things. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A statue of a lion outside the grand entrance to the New York Public Library" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Romana Javitz worked at the New York Public Library between 1928 and 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-city-public-library-entrance-345087263">Ryan DeBerardinis</a></span>
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<p>Essentially, Javitz foresaw the image-based browsing that search engines provide today. She also anticipated their commercial control but believed that images are an important public resource. In speeches, pamphlets and grant applications, Javitz acted by <a href="https://www.nypl.org/about/divisions/wallach-division/picture-collection/romana-javitz">urging</a> libraries to steward image collections. </p>
<h2>The media and civil rights</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.aaihs.org/surveillance-state-power-and-the-activism-of-shirley-graham-du-bois/">Shirley Graham DuBois</a> from Indiana was an activist, award-winning novelist, editor, and the first black female dramatist. In 1931, she produced the first black <a href="https://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/blog/finding-tom-tom">opera</a>, Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro. Graham was committed to using literacy and popular media as tools to free people from race and sex discrimination, whether Black, white, or Native American. </p>
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<img alt="An old sepia photo of a woman facing the right hand side of the image and looking upwards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Shirley Graham DuBois played an instrumental role in civil rights activism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/079_vanv.html">Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection</a></span>
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<p>During the second world war, Graham worked on military bases giving courses on journalism and photography for black soldiers, helping them to produce their own literary magazines. She was founded the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/freedomways-1961-1985/">journal</a>, Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Negro Freedom Movement in 1961. It provided a rare forum for discussing discrimination from the early years of the civil rights movement forward. </p>
<p>In 1961, Graham’s background in theatre and education caught the attention of the Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah. He asked her to develop the nation’s first public noncommercial, indigenous television network to promote literacy countrywide. Graham and Nkrumah were forced to leave Ghana after a military coup in 1966, before the network was completed.</p>
<h2>Digging deeper</h2>
<p>The contributions of these women, and the 16 others featured in our book, range broadly from film economics, advertising and library science, to progressive anti-racist journalism, theatre, audience researchers, and more. They show us that there has always been the possibility for progressive, inclusive, intersectional, anti-capitalist, anti-racist and gender-equal thought and action.</p>
<p>Our goal is not to create a “new” canon of media studies. Instead, the goal is for academics and lecturers to use our book in their classes to track their own tradition taking different, more inclusive, and radical routes that could provide fresh insight into the world.</p>
<p>In fact, alongside media and communication scholars such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2021.1944345#:%7E:text=This%20silenced%20avenue%20of%20enquiry,and%20editing%20of%20broadcast%20sound.">Carolyn Birdsall and Elinor Carmi</a>, the book questions the need for a canon altogether.</p>
<p>Other researchers and students need to get their hands dirty, too. They need to dig in archives, read original works and examine dismissed ideas that go against the grain. It is likely that researchers in any field will find important women (and their ideas) hidden as typists, transcribers, or editorial, lab, field, or research assistants. Sometimes they may be left out altogether; all that may be left is their name on a grant application. Finding them takes time and effort. But the results are worth it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219357/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Elena Hristova is Lecture in Film and Media at Bangor University, Wales. As part of the research for this book she received funding from the Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, and the Department of Communication Studies, University of Minnesota.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aimee-Marie Dorsten, Ph.D. works for Point Park University and is a member of the Union for Democratic Communication. </span></em></p>Mae D Huettig, Romana Javitz and Shirley Graham DuBois were instrumental in their respective media fields but very few of us will be aware of their individual contributions.Elena D. Hristova, Lecturer in Film and Media, Bangor UniversityAimee-Marie Dorsten, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, Point Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2166002023-11-06T13:32:45Z2023-11-06T13:32:45ZSearching for the right angle – students in this course shoot pool to learn about journalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556397/original/file-20231028-19-njpcze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C17%2C5648%2C3771&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A journalism course invites students to consider the parallels between gathering news and shooting pool.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/confident-teenage-boys-playing-pool-on-illuminated-royalty-free-image/991158980?phrase=shooting+pool&adppopup=true">Maskot / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“News Writing and Reporting II: Multimedia”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea to use pool to teach journalism?</h2>
<p>I wanted to break up the monotony of having students sit at their computers and write news stories or listen to me lecture. So I figured I’d change the venue and try something more kinetic.</p>
<p>I had been going to the <a href="https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/terpzone">TerpZone</a> – a recreational area located in the basement of the student union at the University of Maryland in College Park, where I teach – to eat and use the Wi-Fi. As I watched students shoot pool, I thought: It would be cool to hold at least one class meeting here.</p>
<p>I also thought it would be beneficial. My rationale was that I knew there were some interesting parallels between shooting pool and news gathering. For instance, accurately reporting a complex story could be compared to making a tough shot.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the day I decided to convene class at the pool tables, our regular classroom was unavailable anyway due to a <a href="https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/university-of-maryland-water-outage-after-water-main-break-some-buildings-closed/">water main break on campus</a>. So holding class at the pool tables in the TerpZone – which was not affected – ended up being quite fortuitous.</p>
<h2>What materials did the lesson require?</h2>
<p>I rented four pool tables for an hour or so. I have 14 students. Some students competed on two-player teams, so there would be up to four students per table. </p>
<p>We got the tables at half price, so it cost me $16.</p>
<p>For students who weren’t familiar with pool, I provided a link to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmfKI01S-ws">short instructional video</a> to watch before class. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BCvna-0tTpY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">“The Importance Of Angles In Pool”</span></figcaption>
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<h2>What does the pool lesson explore?</h2>
<p>We explored the various ways that good journalism is like shooting pool. To do this, I had each student interview three classmates and ask each one for a journalism/pool analogy. The idea was to have students collect a variety of viewpoints, just as if they were out covering a story in the community, which they do often for this course. </p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the pool lesson?</h2>
<p>Students reported that shooting pool gave them a visual way to understand what journalists do. </p>
<p>One student found it helpful for players to “step back and take a new look at the table before their turn” – a concept that easily applies to reporting a story.</p>
<p>“Finding the right angle for an article requires taking a fresh look at the facts and quotes,” the student wrote.</p>
<p>Another student said both journalism and shooting pool require patience. A different student touched on the benefits of remaining calm – whether as a journalist on deadline or when it’s time to sink the eight ball to win the game.</p>
<p>“Composure is key when it comes to both,” the student said. “I think there are high-pressure moments. Now you have one ball left, two balls left, and you gotta be able to keep your composure, perform under pressure.”</p>
<p>Other students noted how pool demonstrates the need to anticipate unforeseen consequences as they pursue stories.</p>
<p>“It was important to know where all the balls were on the table and how hitting one would affect the others,” the student said. </p>
<h2>Why is this approach relevant now?</h2>
<p>Americans’ trust in the media to report the news accurately and fairly is <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/403166/americans-trust-media-remains-near-record-low.aspx">at a near record low</a> – just 34%. </p>
<p>If pool – or any other game – can teach future journalists to be more thoughtful about how they pursue stories, perhaps it can lead to better coverage and help restore public confidence in what the media report.</p>
<p>There are other reasons why an approach like this makes sense at this particular time. Students are under a lot of <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.886344">academic stress</a>, which can affect their overall well-being. As many pool players will tell you, shooting pool can be a <a href="https://www.thecaregiverspace.org/billiards-to-cope-with-stress/">positive way to relieve stress</a>. It also can help <a href="https://www.dovemed.com/healthy-living/wellness-center/health-benefits-billiards/">build self-esteem and improve concentration</a>.</p>
<p>Also, before we shot pool together, I rarely saw students socialize with one another so effortlessly. When we moved class to the pool hall, students socialized like never before. So it was a good team-building exercise. My only regret was not doing it sooner in the semester.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamaal Abdul-Alim works as an adjunct at the University of Maryland in College Park. He also currently serves as education editor at The Conversation.</span></em></p>A journalism professor discovers that some of the best lessons for future journalists can be taught on a pool table.Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Lecturer in Journalism, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1791632022-03-22T12:14:25Z2022-03-22T12:14:25Z‘I wanted a professor like me’ – a hip-hop artist explains his turn to academia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452239/original/file-20220315-27-1j5fkkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7951%2C5237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The media plays an important role in the way people learn to view themselves and others.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/single-father-wacthing-movie-on-a-laptop-with-his-royalty-free-image/1182448936">FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/cic/faculty-staff/evans_jabari.php">Jabari Evans</a>, associate professor of race and media at the University of South Carolina, studies the messages that media produce about the representation of race and how that can impact marginalized groups, particularly the Black community. Below are some highlights from an interview with The Conversation. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jabari Evans explains his career path.</span></figcaption>
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<p><strong>How did you get to where you are today?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> I started <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYL6MGqDss">off as a musician</a>, a hip-hop musician. I toured. I had three separate record deals over the course of my career as a recording artist. But I found that when I started entering my early 30s, I was doing a lot of youth mentorship work, as well as community activism.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The music video for Kidz in the Hall’s Jukebox.</span></figcaption>
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<p>That work led me to pursue grants for my own not-for-profit and really try to see solutions and help Black youths utilize their creativity in ways that can change their life trajectories – whether that’s financially or just becoming better people. I found myself really asking these questions that could only be answered through research or academic work. </p>
<p>For example, I was always interested in how young adults from low-income communities of color who become successful in creative industries could have been better supported along their formal paths to success, and how that insight could be used to implement culturally relevant offerings in academic spaces. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1952294">My most recent work</a> argues that participation in hip-hop “<a href="https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/">communities of practice</a>” is a multidimensional asset that can be used to empower Black youths for the media literacy education necessary to navigate their social, civic, personal, academic and professional lives. </p>
<p><strong>What do you enjoy most about what you study?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> The greatest thing about what I study is that I get to always put a little bit of me in the work that I do. When you study race as a Black person – and for me as a Black man – I’m able to see not only is my work impactful to society at large, but how it is impactful for those who are my friends, who are my family and my own children. My work speaks to issues of equity and inclusion in today’s creative class that face many Black youths at the social policy level, a developmental level and a pedagogical level.</p>
<p>I think it allows me a lot more credence. It allows me a lot more flexibility in how I reach people, how to connect with people. </p>
<p><strong>What motivates you to continue to do the research in the field that you’re in?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> Since I was an undergrad, and I think when I was an undergrad, I wanted a professor like me. And so I’m really just trying to be the change that I wanted to see. And I think that’s kind of the necessary void that needed to be filled. And so I have fashioned myself into that space.</p>
<p>But beyond that, I think I’ve always loved media, I’ve always loved watching television, making and listening to music. I’ve always loved watching movies, I’ve always loved sports media and, now, news media. And I’ve always been very well entrenched in it and thinking about it in ways that are critical.</p>
<p><strong>What is next for your research?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> I am working on a book called “Hip Hop Civics” (University of Michigan Press). It is an ethnographic study of a hip-hop-based education program administered by a local nonprofit in two of Chicago’s lowest-performing schools. The project is articulating the claim that Black youths, particularly those from low-income areas, should be both allowed and encouraged to learn digital media literacy and develop critical thinking skills in a curriculum centered on hip-hop composition.</p>
<p>[<em>More than 150,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Join the list today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jabari M. Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of race and media discusses the importance of analyzing media through a critical lens.Jabari M. Evans, Assistant Professor of Race and Media, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676012021-09-14T19:08:05Z2021-09-14T19:08:05ZForceful vaccine messages backfire with holdouts – how can it be done better?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420892/original/file-20210913-21-15zd52e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C942%2C579&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters gather at Indiana University in June 2021 to demonstrate against mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for students, staff and faculty. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-holding-placards-gather-at-indiana-universitys-news-photo/1233384399?adppopup=true">SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-full-fda-approval-of-a-vaccine-do-if-its-already-authorized-for-emergency-use-165654">FDA approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine</a> and the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/08/24/covid-vaccines-mandates-masks-biden-fauci/8250548002/">continued surge of the delta variant</a>, governments across the world have renewed their push to increase the number of vaccinated individuals by persuading the holdouts. On Sept. 9, 2021, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/us/politics/biden-vaccine-mandates-transcript.html">President Joe Biden announced</a> sweeping vaccine mandates, expressing frustration at the vaccine holdouts: “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.bellisario.psu.edu/people/individual/s.-shyam-sundar">communication scientist</a> who has studied the effects of media and health campaigns for the past 30 years, I worry that a fevered pitch in vaccine messaging may make the holdouts even more resistant. The direct, blunt messages to go get vaccinated that worked on three-quarters of Americans may not work for the remaining one-quarter. If anything, they might backfire.</p>
<p>Research has shown that some health communication techniques work more effectively than others depending on the audience. It’s a lesson that not only policymakers can apply but also members of the media, industry and even parents and relatives.</p>
<p>When it comes to embracing new ideas and practices, research has identified <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?hl=en&publication_year=2003&author=EM+Rogers&title=Diffusion+of+innovations">five categories of people</a>: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. With COVID-19 vaccination, it’s come down to the last two, and they are the most resistant to change.</p>
<p>This group of <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/unvaccinated-america-in-5-charts/">unvaccinated people</a> is substantial in number – there are nearly <a href="https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2021/07/21/unvaccinated">80 million people</a> in the U.S. who are vaccine eligible yet remain unvaccinated – and they are the ones who could help the U.S. achieve herd immunity. But, research suggests that they are also the ones who will take offense at forceful exhortations to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/opinion/coronavirus-mask-vaccine-mandates.html">go get vaccinated</a>. </p>
<h2>Strong messaging can backfire</h2>
<p>Public health messaging can and does often influence people – but not always in the intended direction. Back in 1999, I <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=euwjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=STATEMENT+BEFORE+THE+SUBCOMMITTEE+ON+CRIMINAL+JUSTICE,+DRUG+POLICY+AND+HUMAN+RESOURCES+OF+THE+UNITED+STATES+HOUSE+OF+REPRESENTATIVES+BY+S.+SHYAM+SUNDAR,+PH.D.&source=bl&ots=QAAzWaL6o7&sig=ACfU3U2zK6uWRtXCmPnOmiU5n8XSRl3tJA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirh66dmbvyAhUjEFkFHTziDREQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false">testified in the U.S. Congress</a> about how powerful anti-drug messages may be turning adolescents on to drugs rather than off of them. Likewise, the strong language of current vaccine messaging may be evoking resistance rather than compliance. </p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/opinion/coronavirus-mask-vaccine-mandates.html">this headline</a> from a recent New York Times editorial: “Get Masked. Get Vaccinated. It’s the Only Way Out of This.” This follows 18 months of public-health messaging urging people to stay home, wash hands and maintain social distancing.</p>
<p>They may be well intentioned, but research in health communication shows that such directive messages can be perceived as “high threat,” meaning they threaten the free will of the message receiver by dictating what they should do. They are likely to trigger <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1967-08061-000">what psychologists call “reactance”</a>. In other words, when individuals sense a threat to their freedom of action, they become motivated to restore that freedom, often by attempting to do the very thing that is prohibited or by refusing to adhere to the recommended behavior. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2021.1927914">Recent research</a> by my communications colleagues at Penn State shows that even advertisements that include directive slogans such as “No Mask, No Ride” – from Uber – and “Socialize Responsibly to Keep Bars Open” – a Heineken message – can irritate consumers and make them less likely to engage in responsible behaviors.</p>
<p>Reactance to COVID-19 messaging is evident in the form of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/world/france-protests-covid-health-pass.html?smid=em-share">widespread protests</a> around the world. Many have gone to the streets and social media, <a href="https://www.malheurenterprise.com/posts/8849/covid-surge-malheur-county-goes-back-to-school-local-health-experts-ask-community-to-vaccinate">with slogans</a> such as “my body, my choice,” “let me call my own shots” and “coercion is not consent.” </p>
<p>These responses demonstrate not simply hesitation to get vaccinated, but rather active resistance to vaccine messaging, reflecting an effort to protect personal agency by asserting one’s freedom of action. </p>
<h2>Flipping the script</h2>
<p>Freedom is a critical concept in the anti-vaccination rhetoric. “Freedom, not force” is the battle cry of the protesters. “If we lose medical freedom, we lose all freedom,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/22/nyregion/staten-island-covid-vaccine-workers.html">reads a poster</a>. “Choose freedom,” urged Sen. Rand Paul in a <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/fox-news-op-ed-sen-rand-paul-mask-mandates-and-lockdowns-petty-tyrants-no-not-again-choose-freedom">recent op-ed</a> expressing his resistance to mask mandates and lockdowns. “We will make our own health choices. We will not show you a passport, we will not wear a mask, we will not be forced into random screening and testing.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Anti-vaccination protester holds a sign and a flag during a rally against COVID-19 vaccines" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420895/original/file-20210913-27-kozdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Freedom of choice has been a constant theme throughout the pandemic, whether it be about masking, school and business closures or vaccination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-anti-vaccination-protester-holds-a-sign-and-a-flag-as-news-photo/1234951009?adppopup=true">Ringo Chiu/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One way to counter such reactance is by changing the communication strategy. Health communication researchers have found that simple changes to message wording can make a big difference. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03637750500111815">one study</a> by my Penn State colleagues who study health persuasion, the researchers tested participants’ responses to sensible health behaviors such as flossing: “If you floss already, don’t stop even for a day. And, if you haven’t been flossing, right now is the time to start. … Flossing: It’s easy. Do it because you have to!” Study participants reacted to such messages by expressing their disagreement through anger and by defying the advocated behavior.</p>
<p>But then the researchers reworded the same advocacy to be less threatening, such as: “If you floss already, keep up the good work. And if you haven’t been flossing, now might be a good time to start.” And “Flossing: It’s easy. Why not give it a try?” They found that the participants’ reactance was significantly lower and their message acceptance higher. </p>
<p>In the same way, softening the message and using less dogmatic language could be the key to persuading some of the unvaccinated. This is because suggestive, rather than directive, messages allow room for people to exercise their own free will. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00056">Studies in health communication</a> also suggest several other strategies for reducing reactance, ranging from providing choices to evoking empathy.</p>
<h2>Bandwagon effects</h2>
<p>Perhaps more important – given people’s reliance on smartphones and social networking – is to make better use of the technological features of interactive media, which includes websites, social media, mobile apps and games. Clever use of digital media can help convey strong health messages without triggering reactance.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106270">Research in our lab</a> shows that people’s responses to media messages can be influenced by the approval of anonymous others on the internet, in the same way that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/1358628.1358873">consumers rely</a> on other people’s opinions and star ratings for making purchasing decisions online. In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1888450">recent study</a>, we discovered that freedom-threatening health messages can be made more palatable if they are accompanied by a large number of likes on social media from other people. When a lot of others were seen as supporting the advocacy message, the forceful language did not seem any more threatening to their freedom than the gentler version. </p>
<p>In other words, we found that the number of likes has a strong “bandwagon effect” in reducing reactance. We also discovered that providing an option to comment on the health message imbues a higher sense of personal agency and greater acceptance of the message.</p>
<p>In another <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1885772">recent experiment</a>, we found that customization, or the ability to tailor one’s phone or online site to one’s liking, can also aid health communication. Whether it is a phone app, dating site or social media feed, customizing a digital space allows people to reflect their personality. Seeing a health advocacy message in such a personalized space does not pose as much of a threat in such venues because people feel secure in their identity. We found that customization helps reduce negative reactions to health messages by increasing one’s sense of identity.</p>
<p>A communication strategy that is sensitive to psychological reactance could empower the holdouts to willingly get vaccinated instead of grudgingly comply with a mandate.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>S. Shyam Sundar receives funding from U. S. National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Subtly shifting the crafting and delivery of public health messaging on COVID-19 vaccines could go a long way toward persuading many of the unvaccinated to get the shot.S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects & Co-Director, Media Effects Research Laboratory, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1514752021-02-03T18:20:22Z2021-02-03T18:20:22ZIn an age of digital disinformation, dropping level 1 media studies in NZ high schools is a big mistake<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382090/original/file-20210202-19-yblanw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3834%2C2160&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Primary and secondary school teachers engage with students who are constantly on devices — consuming, sharing and jointly creating texts, photos, videos and memes.</p>
<p>Across social media, hate speech, conspiracy threads and health disinformation swamp evidence-based material. Fabrications and fragmentations of reality cannot be challenged in real time.</p>
<p>Despite this massive influence on young minds, the government intends to remove one of the few teaching opportunities that might equip students to navigate their online world. </p>
<p>Along with several other subjects, secondary school media studies will be <a href="https://www.education.govt.nz/news/ncea-level-1-subject-changes/">dropped from the level 1 curriculum</a> of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (<a href="https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/">NCEA</a>) from 2023.</p>
<p>This is a backward step. Making sense of today’s hyper-mediated world depends on the availability of robust media studies courses in primary and secondary schools.</p>
<p>Young inhabitants of this world serve only to reproduce an “attention economy” shaped by the business models of social media and mass media corporations. They need the critical skills to understand this aspect of their lives.</p>
<p>Furthermore, recent medical research suggests excessive smartphone and social media use among adolescents is <a href="https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/smartphones,-social-media-use,-and-youth-mental-health">associated with mental distress</a>. The social implications of this are disturbing.</p>
<h2>Media studies may disappear</h2>
<p>At present, level 1 media studies students learn about regulation of media content, analyse media coverage of current events, examine and compare media genres and production technology.</p>
<p>Over the next two years, they evaluate media texts and representations, develop a range of journalism skills across different media and explore the workings of particular media industries.</p>
<p>The entire three-year curriculum advances critical thinking and foundational media literacy. Students appreciate how media texts are constructed and disseminated and how different experiences and viewpoints shape the readings of such texts.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-publish-or-not-to-publish-the-medias-free-speech-dilemmas-in-a-world-of-division-violence-and-extremism-153451">To publish or not to publish? The media's free-speech dilemmas in a world of division, violence and extremism</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>After secondary school, media studies students are equipped for tertiary-level courses in communication studies, film production, journalism, radio, visual media, art and design, general humanities and the social sciences.</p>
<p>Without level 1 courses, the risk is that some schools may abandon the subject altogether. Fewer media studies courses will reduce the number of qualified teachers available. Media studies pathways will, inevitably, disappear.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1334572784400232449"}"></div></p>
<p>This bleak scenario was outlined to me by a senior media studies teacher from the National Association of Media Educators (<a href="https://www.name.org.nz/">NAME</a>). For her, the government’s decision is short-sighted and contradictory:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I find it hard to believe that Chris Hipkins, as minister of health and COVID response minister, can warn how everyone must avoid misinformation with regard to dealing with COVID, but then as education minister agree to remove the subject that most equips students with the skills to avoid misinformation — there is such a dissonance happening here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would add that Prime Minister Jacinda Adern’s accurate distillations of COVID-19 science <a href="https://www.waikato.ac.nz/study/success-stories/jacinda-ardern">reflect her own media education</a> — a communications degree from Waikato University. This strengthens the case for robust media studies courses at secondary level.</p>
<h2>No political debate</h2>
<p>The Education Ministry’s rationale is certainly hard to fathom. Its December press release was headlined: “NCEA Level 1 changes give students a broader foundation” — the implication being media studies are a narrowly defined pathway.</p>
<p>Such an assumption ignores the disparate origins of media studies research and the range of knowledge available to student learners.</p>
<p>The growing pervasiveness of mass media and digital media communication has brought together the insights of journalism, history, literary studies, political studies, economics, sociology, anthropology and psychology. These are the raw materials for secondary school and tertiary media studies programs.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/googles-and-facebooks-loud-appeal-to-users-over-the-news-media-bargaining-code-shows-a-lack-of-political-power-154379">Google's and Facebook’s loud appeal to users over the news media bargaining code shows a lack of political power</a>
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<p>Alas, media educators’ criticism of the government’s proposals has not generated party-political debate. Rather, Hipkins’ unsupportable claims are complemented by National Party leader Judith Collins’ derogatory <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thepanel/audio/2018767169/judith-collins-too-many-woke-subjects-in-schools">remarks</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem with secondary schools now is there’s too much photography and too much media and other woke subjects.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly the government and opposition are of one mind — student media literacy is not a high priority.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W8w6wUoZB2U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Eggplant: a government-funded project to help young New Zealanders navigate the internet safely.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Losing historical memory</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, New Zealand primary school pupils use digital technology throughout the curriculum to develop their knowledge, skills and cognitive understanding. No complaints here — immersive digital learning recognises the omnipresence of networked screens, online platforms and computational intelligence.</p>
<p>However, an historical appreciation of communication technologies is also required. Phonetic alphabets, manuscripts, printing presses and telegraph/telephone networks necessarily prefigure the internet and social media.</p>
<p>Without this background knowledge primary school pupils risk becoming ciphers of a hyper-mediated present in which transitory information and imagery annul historical memory.</p>
<p>Without a sense of past and present pupils will struggle to separate verifiable journalism from clickbait, infotainment and orchestrated propaganda.</p>
<p>Yes, there is digital education available for both parents and pupils, including <a href="https://www.netsafe.org.nz/staying-safe-online/">internet safety programs</a> to counteract stalkers, scanners, cyberbullies and porn merchants. While crucial, this kind of media literacy is insufficient.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-misinformation-on-chinese-social-media-lessons-for-countering-conspiracy-theories-150718">COVID-19 misinformation on Chinese social media – lessons for countering conspiracy theories</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Greater media literacy is vital</h2>
<p>The fundamental reality is that social media are not a neutral means of communication, content creation or information transfer. From late primary school, digitally aware students should be investigating the origins, motivations and tactics of disinformation networks such as QAnon and COVID or climate change denial.</p>
<p>Classroom activities might reveal how we spread disinformation inadvertently by sharing videos, using hashtags and adding to comment threads. As a recent <em>Scientific American</em> <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/everyone-is-an-agent-in-the-new-information-warfare/">editorial</a> reflected, “Each one of us is a node on the battlefield for reality.”</p>
<p>Correspondingly, students might share their experiences of Google and Facebook advertising and consider why users are encouraged to spend more time on sites. Final-year secondary students will, ideally, have answers to the following questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>why did Twitter belatedly terminate Donald Trump’s account?</p></li>
<li><p>how does Facebook profit from extreme violent content?</p></li>
<li><p>how does one obtain reliable information about the COVID-19 pandemic?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Finally, a question for the education minister and his officials on behalf of media educators everywhere: should aspiring citizens be more or less media-literate than they are now?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wayne Hope does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Schools are back, but NCEA level 1 media studies soon won’t be — at a time when media literacy is more vital than ever.Wayne Hope, Professor of Communication Studies, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1442612020-09-02T12:21:18Z2020-09-02T12:21:18ZHow to read coronavirus news and learn what you actually need to know about staying safe in the pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355573/original/file-20200831-20-3tp9yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2995%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The news helps people navigate a complex and changing pandemic world. But they may not always remember what they need to. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Business-Fallout/ebe4500425c1429cbe29601c05463310/10/0">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With COVID-19, a news story that may be 100% accurate can still unintentionally mislead readers about the greatest threats of the pandemic. The unintended outcome results from a lesson taught to every journalism student: Use “real people” to “humanize” the news. </p>
<p>The “real person” in COVID-19 stories may be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/children-and-the-virus-as-schools-reopen-much-remains-unknown-about-the-risk-to-kids-and-the-peril-they-pose-to-others/2020/08/09/e40f0862-d81e-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html">a mom</a> concerned about her child getting sick in the classroom, used as an example in an article about schools reopening. It may be the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/us/virus-young-deaths.html">the family member</a> of a person who died from COVID-19, who gives a moving account for a story about the virus’s effects on young adults.</p>
<p>News is about people, so it makes sense to highlight real-life stories. Viewers and readers relate <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/makes-good-story/good-stories-prove-relevance-audience">more to personal tales than they do to dry statistics</a>.</p>
<p>But one person’s experience is, well, one person’s experience. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Exemplification-in-Communication-the-influence-of-Case-Reports-on-the-Perception/Zillmann-Brosius/p/book/9780805828115">Media studies research</a> suggests readers should not be unduly swayed by one person’s tale of woe – or joy – because examples don’t necessarily represent the whole. </p>
<h2>Harrowing, memorable and incomplete</h2>
<p>Six million Americans have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html">contracted the coronavirus</a>, experiencing radically differing symptoms, illnesses and outcomes. So terrifying individual tales in a news story can’t tell people all they need to know.</p>
<p>For example, National Public Radio recently did a piece on <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/900710151">people recovering very slowly from the coronavirus</a>. The gut-wrenching story told first-person accounts of two women who continue to suffer months after getting the virus. </p>
<p>The interview was harrowing – enough to scare one into wearing a mask at all times – and memorable. But most people will not become COVID-19 “<a href="https://theconversation.com/im-a-covid-19-long-hauler-and-an-epidemiologist-heres-how-it-feels-when-symptoms-last-for-months-143676">long haulers</a>.” Evidence suggests it takes <a href="https://www.webmd.com/lung/covid-recovery-overview#2">usually two weeks</a> to recover from mild cases and six weeks from serious cases. </p>
<p>While scientists don’t yet fully understand COVID-19, the <a href="https://www.webmd.com/lung/covid-recovery-overview#1">overall recovery rate</a> from the virus is between 97% and 99.75%. </p>
<p>NPR included information on typical illness length in its story on COVID-19 long haulers. But the two women’s horrific accounts are what many listeners will likely recall – and tell others about.</p>
<p>Another exemplification that could lead people to misunderstand pandemic risk is the story of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/12/south-carolina-reports-first-coronavirus-death-child-under-5/5423730002/">the first child under age 5</a> to die from the virus, in South Carolina. Distributed nationally by the Associated Press, this piece ran in local papers across the U.S. It would naturally have parents concerned.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html">the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> says children so young are nine times less likely to die from COVID-19 than young adults and 270 times less likely than people in their 50s. </p>
<p>This information was not included in the story, potentially skewing parents’ thinking when it comes to decisions about everything from play dates to school attendance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A very young child is nasal swabbed for coronavirus by a health professional in a mask and face shield" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355578/original/file-20200831-18-hq5ltd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young children are extremely unlikely to die from COVID-19.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-numbers-are-low-until-its-your-child-the-coronavirus-can-be-deadly-for-children-too/2020/04/21/0f5ab28a-83e9-11ea-ae26-989cfce1c7c7_story.html">AP Photo/Elaine Thompson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anecdotal evidence is…anecdotal</h2>
<p>This problem goes beyond coronavirus coverage. </p>
<p>Another common tactic in the news business is the “anecdotal lead” – the short story that starts a news article or TV news broadcast, meant to grab attention. For example, <a href="https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/06/01/santa-monica-owner-defends-his-store-with-guns-amid-looting/">one widely reported anecdote</a> during the anti-racism protests following the police death of George Floyd was a store owner in Santa Monica, California, who protected his liquor store from looting in June by standing out front with an assault rifle.</p>
<p>Be wary of such opening anecdotes. </p>
<p>The Santa Monica snapshot, while true, is not indicative of how <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-agents-sent-to-kenosha-but-history-shows-militarized-policing-in-cities-can-escalate-violence-and-trigger-conflict-143579">unrest across the nation</a> is playing out. Most protests are <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-movement-uses-creative-tactics-to-confront-systemic-racism-143273">peaceful</a>, and when looting breaks out business owners generally leave <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-george-floyd-protests-police-and-protesters-try-to-stop-looting-11591377543">armed defense to the police</a>. Some press charges against those who damage their property. Other small business owners have <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/minneapolis-businesswoman-stands-protesters-even-after-her-store-burned-down-n1226731">fed, protected and joined peaceful protesters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chef Oji Abbot sits outside his restaurant and another Black-owned business, both of which feature anti-racism messaging" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355580/original/file-20200831-25-rb6c5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many small business owners, like Oji Abbott of Washington, D.C., supported recent anti-racism protests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/oji-abbott-chef-o-sits-in-front-of-his-restaurant-oohhs-and-news-photo/1221108523?adppopup=true">Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>All those stories are told in the media, too. Yet Brian Dunning, <a href="https://skeptoid.com/">executive director of Skeptoid Media</a>, which produces a podcast dedicated to debunking bad science, said the opening anecdote is usually what readers and viewers remember from a news story – not so much the bigger picture it is supposed to convey. </p>
<p>The human brain is “hard-wired to think anecdotally,” <a href="http://aejmc.org/events/sanfrancisco20/keynote/">said Dunning in a recent interview</a> with a group of journalism educators.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-memories-are-formed-and-retrieved-by-the-brain-revealed-in-a-new-study-125361">Science backs this up</a>. Research into cognitive processing finds that people consume information constantly, and their brains eventually get so full that only a few scant details can be recalled. </p>
<p>“So most news story content is never adequately processed and quickly forgotten,” write Stanely J. Baran and Dennis K. Davis in a primer on <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/mass-communication-theory-9780190942793">mass communication</a>. “Even when we do make a more conscious effort to learn from news, we often lack the information necessary to make in-depth interpretations of content.”</p>
<h2>The big pandemic puzzle</h2>
<p>Despite the foibles of human memory, journalists still gravitate toward “the intriguing case report” and the “exemplar-laden account,” explain researchers Dolf Zillman and Hans Bernrd Brosius in their 2000 book “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Exemplification-in-Communication-the-influence-of-Case-Reports-on-the-Perception/Zillmann-Brosius/p/book/9780805828115">Exemplification in Communication</a>.” </p>
<p>There’s a simple reason: It sells.</p>
<p>“Journalism dedicated to unexemplified, abstract accounts of phenomena, no matter how reliable and effectively informative, has rarely, if ever, been considered a winning formula,” say Zillman and Brosius.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The real-person story is not useless. It can help people understand today’s complicated world of deadly pandemics, civil unrest and economic devastation. </p>
<p>But examples are only part of a bigger picture that may well be abstract, nuanced and ever-changing. </p>
<p>The wise news consumer will consider each example as just one piece of the pandemic puzzle as they make daily decisions to keep themselves healthy and their families safe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas J. Hrach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Journalists use real people’s stories to ‘humanize’ the news. But these tales – whether harrowing or heartwarming – can be misleading about the pandemic’s greatest threats.Thomas J. Hrach, Associate Professor, Department of Journalism and Strategic Media, University of MemphisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1222482019-08-23T08:52:44Z2019-08-23T08:52:44ZWhat exactly do journalists like John Humphrys have against Media Studies?<p>Veteran BBC Radio presenter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/john-humphrys">John Humphrys</a> has spent decades exposing the weaknesses inherent in the rhetorical pronouncements made by the UK’s political “elite”. All the evasions, grinding shifts in gear, and downright falsehoods that appear when executive power presents its secretive decisions as a public debate – something Tony Blair was fond of doing – were grist to Humphrys’ mill. </p>
<p>At one point, during the Iraq war, his clinical interrogation of government ministers seemed to represent the rational and humane attitudes that exemplified the beliefs of all those who marched against that disastrous venture. </p>
<p>But in recent years, as the adversarial mode of interviewing has fallen out of favour, Humphrys’ continued adherence to a provocative style has produced some unfortunate gaffes. Perhaps one of the most notable was a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/john-humphrys-suggests-jo-cox-murder-not-terrorism-bbc-radio-4-today_uk_58bd1db6e4b0b99894186e58">comment he made in 2017</a>, when he asked Mark Rowley, a senior police officer, whether Thomas Mair (who murdered the MP Jo Cox) should really be described as a “terrorist” since he was “mentally ill”. This argument (known as the use of “mutually exclusive” categories) seemed to suggest that Humphrys was downplaying the political motives which lay behind the attack. </p>
<p>On August 13, Humphrys’ tendency to go “off piste” <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/john-humphry-radio-4-today_uk_5d53be5ce4b05fa9df06e4aa">ignited another controversy</a>. On this occasion, the subject was the delivery of university degrees, and his guest was the shadow secretary of state for education, Angela Rayner. Discussing the prospect of two-year undergraduate courses, Humphrys questioned the value of a media studies qualification. While, he thought, the medical profession might well need a three-year period of training, students of the media might require rather less time to complete their degrees. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289194/original/file-20190823-170927-1kha69h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289194/original/file-20190823-170927-1kha69h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289194/original/file-20190823-170927-1kha69h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289194/original/file-20190823-170927-1kha69h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289194/original/file-20190823-170927-1kha69h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289194/original/file-20190823-170927-1kha69h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289194/original/file-20190823-170927-1kha69h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Learning the craft.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/nottingham-uk-april-28-2011-young-214483717?src=08XKXF9iUmxOmNhnnarXBA-1-3">Lucian Milasan / Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>How long, then, might students of media actually need? According to Humphrys, “about five minutes” – arguably suggesting that the whole discipline is utterly worthless. While not perhaps his most outrageous intervention, it seemed to me the kind of facile utterance that his profession is meant to challenge. </p>
<p>His whole attitude is a throwback to an earlier period, when casting doubt on the value of media studies was a simple way of defending the supposed integrity of traditional subjects.</p>
<p>My point, however, is not to plead that we “leave the kids alone”, nor to reproduce the usual point about the <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/subjects/what-can-you-do-media-and-communications-degree">high employability of media students</a>, but to ask why some commentators continue to denigrate the subject. Is this because, from its inception in the 1970s and 1980s, it mounted a serious critique of power, which included those elements of the media industry that remained a closed shop to many potential entrants? </p>
<h2>A ‘watchdog’ for democracy?</h2>
<p>To understand just how outdated and contentious Humphrys’ remark has become, we could think for a moment about the roles that “the media” (in their various forms) play in maintaining that exalted commodity known as democracy. </p>
<p>When, for instance, a prime minister can be brought into office by a tiny fraction of the population, or when a government can decide to rescue an economy by using austerity to reduce a much more substantial proportion of the electorate to abject poverty, then the existence of an independent public “watchdog” is essential. </p>
<p>I’m not referring here just to the BBC, but to all media forms and outlets that have the potential to contribute to a healthy public culture.</p>
<p>If the media in general can provide the space and opportunity for informed debate to take place, then the critical distance provided by academic research (produced over many decades and devoted to the relationship between our notions of democracy and media activity) helps distinguish between reliable information and the endless fantasies generated by state and corporate power.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1161584216301297664"}"></div></p>
<p>Media and Communication courses encompass studies of propaganda, voting allegiance, party political communication, the news industry, representations of gender and identity, advertising, PR, new media, public discourse, popular music, protest movements, social media exchange and a host of other topics. </p>
<p>Academic research into the media has produced a coherent body of knowledge and practical skills that are of use to journalists, activists, academics, politicians – and people in general. Ultimately, all forms of public activity are bound to be studied and assessed, and it would be unrealistic to expect that the media should be protected from scrutiny. </p>
<h2>Why the contempt?</h2>
<p>The question must be: what does an experienced practitioner such as Humphrys find objectionable about this kind of enquiry, and the fact that it has been made available to students across the UK? If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that he does not really want to understand the topic, because this would undermine his belief in the absolute separation of authentic, hard-won experience (his own, presumably) and what he sees as a privileged mode of existence devoted to the study of trivia.</p>
<p>If the latter is really the case then, judging by Humphrys’ recent form, some elements of the Today programme would also fall into the category of the frivolous and inconsequential, making them eminently suitable for critical analysis. In the meantime, students of Media and Communication should continue to pursue their studies in the knowledge that they are making an essential contribution to public debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122248/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Price does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>BBC presenter John Humphrys seems to think the school of hard knocks is superior to academe. He’s wrong.Stuart Price, Professor of Media and Political Discourse, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1208942019-08-07T05:01:41Z2019-08-07T05:01:41ZAccording to TV, heart attack victims are rich, white men who clutch their hearts and collapse. Here’s why that’s a worry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287123/original/file-20190807-84205-5mqfq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women have heart attacks too and can have different symptoms to men, like jaw pain, breathlessness or nausea, as well as the familiar chest pain. So why don't we see this on TV?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/temporomandibular-joint-muscle-disorder-tmd-concept-1058801306?src=29N48FBy83gN2d_18qzuJw-1-46">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What kind of person do you imagine having a heart attack? Is it a middle-aged white businessman clutching his chest? Someone like the Roger Sterling character from the popular television series <a href="https://www.amc.com/shows/mad-men">Mad Men</a>, who had two heart attacks in season 1?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"117031332848214017"}"></div></p>
<p>While Mad Men was set in the 1960s, popular culture continues to repeat this stereotype. Can you think of any women in news reports, magazines, literary fiction, television drama or film who have been depicted having a heart attack or with any other symptoms of heart disease? </p>
<p>If not, this is hardly surprising. Several studies over the past decades have shown the popular media tend to pay little attention to women’s experiences of heart disease compared with men’s.</p>
<p>That can have serious consequences. Women may fail to recognise they’re at risk of heart disease or don’t recognise they’re having a heart attack because their experiences don’t match what’s most commonly portrayed.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-happens-during-a-heart-attack-and-how-is-one-diagnosed-55874">Explainer: what happens during a heart attack and how is one diagnosed?</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17437199.2017.1281750">A review of studies</a> analysed how heart disease was portrayed in North American popular media and public health campaigns. It found a white man in a well-paid professional job (the Roger Sterling type) was represented as the typical person at risk from or already dealing with heart disease. </p>
<p>Even when the media covered women’s experiences of heart disease, the study showed there was a distinctive approach. North American popular media often portrayed women at risk as white, middle-aged and of high socioeconomic status. That’s despite <a href="https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000228">medical research showing</a> non-white and less advantaged women in the USA experience higher levels of heart disease. </p>
<p>Women tended to be shown juggling intensive caring roles for their family with stressful employment, placing them at risk of heart disease. Women not in heterosexual relationships were rarely acknowledged.</p>
<h2>Why does it matter?</h2>
<p>The gendered nature of media portrayal of heart disease can have serious health effects. Epidemiological research shows cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death for women in wealthy countries such as the USA, where it is <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/2015/index.htm">number one for women</a> and Australia, where it is <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-death/deaths-in-australia/contents/leading-causes-of-death">number two for women</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, media coverage often fails to acknowledge these statistics. As a result, women and health-care providers can neglect the warning signs of heart disease. This can lead to lower quality care, poorer health outcomes and higher rates of <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-who-have-heart-attacks-receive-poorer-care-than-men-100161">potentially avoidable deaths</a>.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/women-who-have-heart-attacks-receive-poorer-care-than-men-100161">Women who have heart attacks receive poorer care than men</a>
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<p><a href="https://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2019/07/17/heartjnl-2019-315134?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news">A recent Australian study</a> showed women and people aged under 45 years were more likely to be under-treated for their heart disease symptoms.</p>
<p>Women were less likely than men to be prescribed the recommended medications, have blood tested for lipids (fats), or have their body mass or waist measured.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287128/original/file-20190807-84199-1xrn4ba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Women were less likely to have their risk factors for heart disease, including body mass, assessed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/doctors-office-scale-medical-professional-physician-295146704">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>A spokesperson for the Heart Foundation, which funded the study, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/newcastle/programs/mornings/cvd-and-women/11341934">suggested</a> one reason is these demographic groups tend not to fit the “heart attack victim” stereotype, and media representation of heart attacks played a role in reinforcing those stereotypes.</p>
<p>By contrast, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/38/4/e496/2966943">American research</a> found breast cancer has received far more media attention as a health risk to women compared with heart disease and women are consequently more aware of breast cancer risks.</p>
<h2>Facebook, digital media doing a better job</h2>
<p>The public generates <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Health-Critical-Approaches/dp/1138123455">masses of information</a> about their experiences of illness, disease and surgery on blogs and social media sites. But hardly any research has looked at what kinds of information about heart disease is shared on these platforms.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jmir.org/2019/1/e11481/">My research</a> on Australian women’s use of digital health technologies found women often use Facebook groups to find and share health and medical information. Many heart disease or heart failure support groups operate on this platform, some of which have thousands of members. </p>
<p>Facebook can be an important forum for attempts to challenge the male face of heart disease. The US-based <a href="https://www.womensheartalliance.org/">Women’s Heart Alliance</a> was established to fight for equity in medical treatment to be offered to women with heart disease. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105318796187">An analysis of its Facebook page</a> found female members often complained medical professionals had ignored their heart disease symptoms when they sought help.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/women-have-heart-attacks-too-but-their-symptoms-are-often-dismissed-as-something-else-76083">Women have heart attacks too, but their symptoms are often dismissed as something else</a>
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<p>The Heart Foundation <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/newcastle/programs/mornings/cvd-and-women/11341934">has drawn attention</a> to the importance of Australian women realising they may be at risk from heart disease for some time now. A <a href="https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/your-heart/women-and-heart-disease">special section of its website</a> provides important information targeted at Australian women about what it’s like for women to experience heart attacks and other symptoms of heart disease. It also outlines risk factors for women and warning signs.</p>
<p>Initiatives directed at women by organisations such as the Heart Foundation and the Women’s Heart Alliance, as well as social media groups such as these Facebook communities, have made a start on challenging the wealthy male face of heart disease. </p>
<p>Other forms of popular culture continue to lag well behind. It’s time characters other than the Roger Sterling alpha male, including not only women but men from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, are recognised as being at risk from heart disease too.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australians-die-cause-1-heart-diseases-and-stroke-57423">How Australians Die: cause #1 – heart diseases and stroke</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deborah Lupton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s time characters on TV reflected not only women’s experience of heart disease but those of men from diverse backgrounds if we want to prevent more people dying from heart disease.Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1144242019-05-20T11:10:52Z2019-05-20T11:10:52ZWhat your ability to engage with stories says about your real-life relationships<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275188/original/file-20190517-69199-1xptoyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some have any easier time than others connecting with fictional worlds and characters.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ghost-try-come-out-tv-17244325?src=iNkHVfG0giylbHevePhzvQ-1-0">zhuda/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The best TV shows and films don’t simply distract from the drudgery of everyday life. They’re places to vicariously <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00073.x">get to know different people</a>, and learn from their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12100">relationships and experiences</a>.</p>
<p>Media scholars like ourselves have a term for how stories can effect us in these ways – “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12228">boundary expansion</a>” – and every viewer experiences some level of this. </p>
<p>But some seem more drawn to these fictional characters and their fictional worlds than others.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519826345">In a recent study</a>, we wanted to learn more about these types of people. Why do some become absorbed in the tumultuous relationships playing out before their eyes on the screen – holding their breath during every tense interaction – while others seem to have a tougher time connecting with the characters and the drama?</p>
<p>Interestingly, we found that your attachment style – or your ability to form close relationships in real life – can play a big role.</p>
<h2>Why some struggle to form close relationships</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/mary-ainsworth.html">According to attachment theory</a>, your experiences with caregivers in childhood tend to influence how you relate to romantic partners later in life. If a caregiver is appropriately nurturing without being too overprotective, you’ll develop secure attachments as an adult. </p>
<p>But many who grow up with unreliable caregivers will go on to develop insecure attachments in adulthood. Psychologists have parsed insecure attachment styles into three types.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Those who constantly worry about the security of their relationships have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00406.x">an anxious attachment style</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>Others steer clear of intimacy altogether, which is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-avoidant-attachment-style-2018-3">an avoidant attachment style</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Then there are those who experience severe anxiety about close relationships and cope with their anxiety through avoidance. This is often called <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/fearful-avoidant-attachment-style-4169674">a fearful-avoidant attachment style</a>, and these individuals still long for intimacy, but will often sabotage their relationships.</p></li>
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<h2>An imaginary refuge</h2>
<p>We suspected that, in lieu of forming fulfilling real-life relationships, people with insecure attachment patterns might find refuge in the fictional worlds of television and film. </p>
<p>In the study, we administered a survey to 1,039 American adults. Some of the questions assessed their attachment anxiety (“I often worry that my partner doesn’t care as much about me as I do about them”) and avoidant tendencies (“I feel myself pulling away when partners get too close”). </p>
<p>We also looked at their proclivity to engage in boundary expansion, asking them to respond to statements like “When watching television and film, I experience what it’s like to meet people I wouldn’t otherwise meet.” </p>
<p>We found a consistent pattern. Those who possessed anxiety about their relationships could more easily engage with stories and were more likely to form imagined relationships with characters. They were better able to vicariously pursue unmet needs through the stories, were more likely to reflect on events from stories and were more likely to report that they had learned something about the real world from watching these stories.</p>
<p>However, those who expressed avoidant tendencies seemed unable to engage with and reflect on stories on TV or in movies in the same way. It’s almost as if they shy away from feeling anything, emotionally, from what they watch – much in the same way they avoid intimacy in real life. </p>
<p>The most interesting results were for those who exhibited both anxious and avoidant attachment patterns. These people seemed to have the best ability to engage with the stories and feel something towards the characters. </p>
<p>We suspect this may be due to the fact that these fictional stories act as a safe space – a place to circumvent their anxiety without succumbing to their avoidant tendencies. After all, they must know, deep down, that none of it is real: there aren’t any demands for closeness being made and there’s no relationship to sabotage.</p>
<p>Our study shows that fictional stories can act as a refuge and create opportunities for personal growth. </p>
<p>We’re not saying that watching more television or movies will automatically improve your life or your relationships. But there’s something certainly to be said about the power stories can wield – and their ability to help those grappling with real-life attachment issues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Slater has received funding from the National Institutes for Health for research on preventive health messages. This research did not have external funding support.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Silver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>According to a new study, those who have a tendency to sabotage their relationships may find solace in the fictional worlds of TV and movies.Nathan Silver, PhD Student in Communication, The Ohio State UniversityMichael Slater, Director, School of Communication, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017882018-08-31T10:02:00Z2018-08-31T10:02:00ZThe missing stories from Montara oil spill media coverage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233480/original/file-20180824-149484-oufcmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C858%2C562&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nine years after the Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea, victims have yet to receive compensation. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PR Handout Image/PTTEP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 21 2009 <a href="https://regional.kompas.com/read/2011/09/20/08463627/indonesia.urges.aussie.to.sign.montara.oil.spill.compensation.accord">an offshore oil well in the Timor Sea blew up. This caused at least 40 millions litres of crude oil to spill</a> into the ocean between Indonesia and Australia. The leak from the Montara wellhead platform damaged the environment and the health and livelihoods of fishers and seaweed farmers of West Timor, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Nine years after the disaster, the coastal community affected by the oil spill has yet to be compensated. </p>
<p>The oil spill is considered one of Australia’s worst oil disasters. Despite this, the mitigation response did not receive the levels of publicity of other offshore oil disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. </p>
<p>I study media and governmental responses to environmental threats affecting coastal communities on the eastern rim of the Indian Ocean. My student (who is co-author of this piece) and I <a href="https://www.thorkerr.com/publications/representation-of-the-montara-oil-spill">examined online articles between 2006 and 2017</a> by <em>The West Australian</em>, <em>The Australian</em> and <em>The Australian Financial Review</em> and Indonesian news outlets <em>Pos Kupang</em>, <em>Kompas</em> and <em>Bisnis Indonesia</em>. We found significant gaps in coverage of the unfolding disaster and subsequent legal action.</p>
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Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-montara-then-deepwater-horizon-is-australia-protected-from-catastrophic-oil-spills-996">First Montara, then Deepwater Horizon – is Australia protected from catastrophic oil spills?</a>
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<h2>Missing narratives</h2>
<p>The media we surveyed represented regional, national and business newspapers from Australia and Indonesia. We chose media that were not owned by the state but nonetheless shaped the knowledge of the communities they addressed.</p>
<p>We found that coverage of the Montara oil spill, the mitigation response and subsequent lawsuits has been sporadic, inconsistent and relatively insubstantial. </p>
<p>At the time of Montara oil spill, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) sprayed 184,000 litres of chemicals <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/energy/dirty_energy_development/oil_and_gas/gulf_oil_spill/dispersants.html">to break down the oil into smaller droplets so it could mix with water faster and be less visible</a>. But these dispersants <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es500892m">are known to increase the toxicity of the oil</a> for some marine organisms. </p>
<p>The use of toxic dispersant by an Australian government agency potentially played a part in worsening victims’ suffering. But the Australian media we surveyed wrote little about it. </p>
<p><em>The West Australian</em>, <em>The Australian</em> and <em>The Australian Financial Review</em> stopped reporting on the safety and effectiveness of the dispersants following their early reports on the oil spill in August and September 2009. This was despite the issue being <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F2009-09-16%2F0066%22">raised in the Australian Parliament</a>. </p>
<p>They also did not pay much attention to the class-action lawsuit launched by Indonesian seaweed farmers against the Thai-owned oil company PTTEP, which owned the platform. More than 15,000 seaweed farmers from East Nusa Tenggara launched <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-30/montara-oil-spill-indonesian-farmers-take-company-to-court/8857384">the lawsuit</a>, asking for potentially more than A$200 million.</p>
<p>In contrast, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/psq.12206">a study of media coverage of the Deepwater Horizon spill</a> found this coverage was big enough to have affected Barack Obama’s image as president.</p>
<h2>The impact of poor media coverage</h2>
<p>The impact of the lack of proper coverage of the Montara oil spill is significant. </p>
<p>The Australian public has been left in the dark about the role Australian government agencies played in the Montara disaster. According to <a href="http://www.iadc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/201011-Montara-Report.pdf">a report by the Montara Commission of Inquiry</a>, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA) – now National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) – and the Northern Territory’s Resources Department failed in their regulatory duties to prevent a major accident from happening. </p>
<p>The public also lacked understanding of how poorly AMSA handled the spill. The AMSA sprayed poisonous dispersants without proper assessment and planning. The three Australian media early in the spill praised AMSA for its quick actions, but did not mention the harmful effect of dispersants on people in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Because Australian media did not provide sufficient coverage, the Australian public have little knowledge of how the coastal communities in West Timor lost their livelihoods. Due to the oil spill, the farmers can no longer plant or harvest seaweeds. </p>
<p>The spill has also affected the health of communities. According to <a href="https://www.lawyersalliance.com.au/ourwork/our-work/montara-after-the-spill">a report by the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA)</a>, the local people suffered from rashes, pus-filled cysts and inexplicable bruising following exposure to the ocean. The report also mentioned food poisoning in the spill’s aftermath. </p>
<p>The lack of substantive coverage has enabled the Australian government to blame the entire disaster on PTTEP, through the narratives presented to and reported by the Australian media that we studied. </p>
<h2>Lessons learned</h2>
<p>The absence of media coverage of environmental disasters that involve multiple countries raises the need for media collaboration between countries. </p>
<p>The lack of coverage of the Montara oil disaster has indicated a lack of connection between locally based sources and overseas media. The problem comes from the limited ability of sources to reach and gain the trust of journalists from foreign media. </p>
<p>We can see this in the way Australian and Indonesian media choose and quote their sources. Indonesian articles would feature a spokesperson from a local NGO or an Indonesian government official. Australian media featured Australia’s resources and environment ministers, the oil company spokesperson and Australian politicians. </p>
<p>Most sources in Montara oil spill reports were found in press conferences or releases. This approach was found in both Australian and Indonesian news organisations. There has been no Indonesian media reporting of the <a href="http://www.au.pttep.com/pttep-aa-accepts-montara-penalty">charges against PTTEP</a> in the Northern Territory court. </p>
<h2>Possible solutions</h2>
<p>In the event of an environmental disaster involving multiple countries what can people do to make sure that people overseas understand the conditions they face? </p>
<p>First, people can try to reach out to journalists and ensure their statements are made digitally available to news organisations. They should also consider engaging locally based allied organisations or public relations professionals, or investing in a temporary physical presence near the targeted news organisations.</p>
<p>While their claims might still not meet media organisations’ standards and ethical requirements, it is important to make journalists aware of relevant situations in other countries. </p>
<p>Once their statements reach an overseas public, the latter will have a better understanding of the conditions facing the affected communities. This knowledge will enable the public to demand better environmental emergency responses and safer industrial practices from their governments and corporate sectors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thor Kerr has worked for Australian and Indonesian media organizations, and is a member of The Greens party. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theo Kartawijaya has completed a professional writing internship in the office of Senator Rachel Siewert.</span></em></p>Despite its magnitude, the response to the Montara oil spill did not receive the publicity of other offshore oil disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Thor Kerr, Lecturer in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin UniversityTheo Kartawijaya, Postgraduate student, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920402018-02-20T00:20:15Z2018-02-20T00:20:15ZGrey’s Anatomy is unrealistic, but it might make junior doctors more compassionate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207031/original/file-20180219-116351-1pwovei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Grey's Anatomy's portrayal of trauma experiences is far more dramatic than in real life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413573/mediaviewer/rm2607778304">IMDb/Shondaland, The Mark Gordon Company, Touchstone Television (2005-2007), ABC Studios</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Patient experiences in the TV drama Grey’s Anatomy are, unsurprisingly, portrayed inaccurately when compared with real-life trauma cases, according to a new study.</p>
<p>The US-based medical team of researchers wanted to see if the long-running program, now in its fourteenth season, was realistic in showing what happens to patients when they are rushed to hospital after experiencing a major injury. They reviewed 269 episodes of the program and compared the fictional patients’ treatment and outcomes with those from a database of nearly 5,000 real patients collected in their hospital.</p>
<p>The study, published today in the journal <a href="http://tsaco.bmj.com/content/3/1/e000137">Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open</a>, found most of the fictional patients (71%) were transferred from emergency directly to the operating theatre. This happened to only one in four of the real patients. </p>
<p>The fictional patients also died three times more frequently than the real patients. But if they survived their injury, they were more likely to recover quickly, without further surgeries – and be discharged early.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Fictional patients in Grey’s Anatomy died around three times more frequently than the real patients.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Writing from the perspective of health-care providers working in trauma medicine, the researchers advised fans of Grey’s Anatomy who found themselves or their family members in emergency departments after traumatic injury, that they could hold unrealistic expectations of their care and recovery. But they also noted that it was difficult to know how much credence lay people placed on fictional portrayals of medical care. </p>
<p>Given the enduring popularity of television medical dramas, other researchers have wondered about the accuracy of depictions of medical care and illness in these programs, and what key messages viewers might take away from watching them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-tvs-troubling-storylines-for-characters-with-a-mental-illness-81456">Friday essay: TV's troubling storylines for characters with a mental illness</a>
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<p>For example, several research teams have criticised medical dramas showing heart resuscitation techniques for conveying misinformation about their effectiveness, such as <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199606133342406">far higher survival rates</a> from a heart attack, or <a href="http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(09)00403-1/abstract">more younger people experiencing attacks</a> than in real life. </p>
<p>Numerous studies have found that such portrayals could have an effect on perceptions, but their findings are often contradictory. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/her/article-abstract/32/2/107/3069890?redirectedFrom=fulltext">A review of several such studies</a> found that viewing fictional medical TV programs had a negative influence on viewers’ health-related knowledge, perceptions or behaviour in 11% of studies, a positive influence in 32% of studies, and mixed influence in 58%.</p>
<p>The mixed results are indicative of what <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Osf-AwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA366&dq=active+audience&ots=HeHyxt3bVm&sig=7CGug_LKO340Xy2q0nYTka05T0Q#v=onepage&q=active%20audience&f=false">media studies researchers have long argued</a>: that television viewers don’t passively absorb what they see on their screens. They are active audiences, drawing on other sources of information such as their own experiences, talking to others, and other forms of media to interpret what they see on television. </p>
<h2>From god-like to human</h2>
<p>Medical dramas have long been a staple of television, from the days of Dr Kildare and Marcus Welby in the 1960s, to the more recent ER, Casualty, Cardiac Arrest, Scrubs, House, and Grey’s Anatomy. In Australia, the likes of The Young Doctors, A Country Practice, GP and All Saints have received high ratings and long runs.</p>
<p>Over these decades, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08998280.2010.11928659">the portrayal of doctors has changed dramatically</a>. The first generation of TV doctors were typically white, male, kindly and paternalistic – the “doctor knows best” archetype. Recent medical dramas, in contrast, feature both men and women in doctor roles, with a range of ages and ethnic and racial backgrounds. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Television portrayals of doctors have changed with the times.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Doctors are no longer depicted as god-like creatures, but instead as regular humans who may be dedicated to their craft but suffer from insecurities. They make mistakes, succumb to stress, and have relationship problems. Some even struggle with drug addictions or personality disorders. </p>
<p>The eponymous House, for example, is a brilliant doctor in his diagnostic abilities. However, he is addicted to pain medication, clashes constantly with other staff members, and lacks personal interest in his patients.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Dr House is addicted to pain medication and has serious problems with his communication style.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Influence on medical students</h2>
<p>Medical shows might not just affect patients, but also aspiring or current doctors. Viewers may be inspired to become doctors by watching their favourite television characters, or develop ideas about how doctors should behave and present themselves to patients. </p>
<p><a href="https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6920-11-50">An Australian study</a> of undergraduate medical students training in Sydney in 2011 found that most students had seen the series House and Scrubs, and to a lesser extent Grey’s Anatomy. Students were asked which characters on Grey’s Anatomy and House (the two major medical dramas at the time) they would most and least want to be like in their professional careers.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Some TV shows could actually teach medical students empathy.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Derek Shepherd and Miranda Bailey from Grey’s Anatomy were viewed as the most positive role models. The characters viewed as most negative were Christina Yang and Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy, and House himself. </p>
<p>Many students said they recalled the ethical issues raised in the shows. Of these, the most frequently recalled were medical mistakes (96.6%), death and dying (94.6%), professional misconduct (92%), and quality or value of life or personhood (91.1%). Many discussed these issues with their friends and family after watching the programs.</p>
<p>The authors suggested their research had implications for medical education and that there may be “benefit in using the shows in tutorials or lectures as case studies or examples for students”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scrubs-house-greys-anatomy-are-medical-students-learning-bad-habits-2627">Scrubs, House, Grey's Anatomy: Are medical students learning bad habits?</a>
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<p>Television medical drama, it seems, is still an important avenue for portraying the medical profession and medical care. In this digital age, future researchers should broaden the focus to investigate how doctors and patients alike present videos and images of themselves and medical procedures in online forums and social media, such as <a href="https://simplysociology.wordpress.com/2016/07/14/digitised-dissection-medical-procedures-on-the-internet/">YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deborah Lupton has received funding from the Australian Research Council to conduct research on how doctors are portrayed in the news media. She is a board member of the Australian Privacy Foundation.</span></em></p>A new study compared fictional patient experiences in Grey’s Anatomy with real trauma cases. It concluded patients who are fans of the show might have unrealistic expectations of medical care.Deborah Lupton, Centenary Research Professor, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/878952017-12-12T02:50:32Z2017-12-12T02:50:32ZHow Bill McKibben’s radical idea of fossil-fuel divestment transformed the climate debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198032/original/file-20171206-31532-1fph25r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest against fossil fuels at a coal mine in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keep-it-in-the-ground.jpg">Rikuti</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>“We need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization.” </p>
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<p>With these words, environmental activist Bill McKibben launched a radical and moral broadside against the fossil-fuel industry and its contributions to climate change in <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719">Rolling Stone</a> magazine in 2012. </p>
<p>In a coordinated move, the McKibben-founded climate advocacy group 350.org launched its Go Fossil Free: Divest from Fossil Fuels! Campaign with a <a href="https://350.org/about/">stated goal</a> to “revoke the social license of the fossil fuel industry.” With the help of activist college students, the movement sought to stigmatize fossil fuel companies, restrict future cash flows and depress share prices by compelling universities to divest their holdings in these companies.</p>
<p>Now, five years later, the effort seems to <a href="http://www.marcgunther.com/the-fossil-fuel-divestment-movement-is-failing-except-its-not/">some</a> to have been a failure, at least by the financial measures they laid out. Only a limited number of institutions have divested their endowments, and the stocks of major fossil-fuel companies show little effect. </p>
<p>But in doing a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1086026617744278">network text analysis</a> of news articles, we found that by other measures the effort has been a success. Exhibiting a phenomenon in the social sciences called the “radical flank effect,” McKibben and 350.org have dramatically altered the climate change debate in the United States. Their success on this dimension offers important insights relevant for all social activists to consider.</p>
<h2>Parallel in Civil Rights movement</h2>
<p>First introduced by sociologist <a href="http://irasilver.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Reading-Movement-funding-Haines.pdf">Herbert Haines</a> in 1984, the radical flank effect refers to the positive or negative effects that radical activists can have on more moderate ones in the same cause. </p>
<p>The negative radical flank effect creates a backlash from opposing groups. In such cases, all members of a movement – both moderate and radical – are viewed with the same critical lens. For example, some may think that all environmental groups should be judged by the tactics of those who spike trees to prevent logging or ram whaling ships.</p>
<p>Conversely, the positive radical flank effect is when members of a social movement are viewed in contrast to each other; extreme actions from some members make other organizations seem more palatable or reasonable. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill McKibben (on right) speaks at a 2015 event to pressure Harvard University to divest from its financial stakes in fossil fuel companies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/17136785065/in/photolist-s7bujo-rPSfZr-s52voG-rMZv7k-ravY5X-s7gcJi-rajrJ9-s7jrYZ-s7jtUT-rPSdzr-s7gdoe-rajrXA-rajrDE-s7jv22-rMZxat-rPJ8tu-rMZvM8-s7jvat-rMZw1V-rPKj11-rPSg4z-s7gcc6-rPJbqm-rMZybr-s52xeA-rPJ8pw-s7gdCn-rMZwHg-ravXtB-s7gcFn-raw1De-s52wQj-s52xGj-rajts9-s7gcBp-s7geLK-rPKgJC-s7geZk-rbGAA7-s7brB9-s7bsDQ-rbUqn6-rPSewg-s7jtCa-s52wgy-rPKjKN-s7geQc-s7bu1Y-s6VRmd-rVvar9">350.org</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Haines first studied this in the context of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. When Martin Luther King Jr. first began speaking his message, it was perceived as too radical for the majority of white America. But when Malcolm X entered the debate, he extended the radical flank and, as a result, made King’s message look moderate by comparison. </p>
<p>Russell Train, second administrator of the EPA, articulated the positive radical flank effect in the 1970s when <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/07/us/david-brower-an-aggressive-champion-of-us-environmentalism-is-dead-at-88.html">he quipped</a>, “Thank God for David Brower. He makes it so easy for the rest of us to be reasonable.” <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/03/27/encounters-with-the-archdruid-ii-an-island">Brower</a>, the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, was a controversial figure who pushed the environmental movement to take more aggressive actions. </p>
<h2>The radical flank effect and divestment</h2>
<p>It was in 2012 that McKibben and 350.org staked the radical flank by mobilizing students to pressure their colleges or universities to liquidate their investments in fossil fuel companies. </p>
<p>This was a far more extreme position than was previously taken by activists in the climate change debate. Namely, where others argued for industry-wide controls on <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/pricing-carbon">carbon</a> without demonizing any particular industry, McKibben’s radical flank portrayed the fossil-fuel industry as a public enemy and called for its extermination. </p>
<p>The campaign’s goal was to stigmatize – and thereby harm – the value of fossil fuel companies. But in our study, we found the ultimate effect of their efforts was not so much financial as on the terms of the debate over climate change.</p>
<p>We used text analytics software to sift through 42,000 news articles about climate change between 2011 and 2015 and map the influence of the radical flank. In this analysis, we found that the divestment campaign expanded rapidly as a topic in worldwide media. In the process, it disrupted what had become a <a href="http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/ajhoff/pub_academic/2011%20Nature%20Climate%20Change.pdf">polarized debate</a> and reframed the conflict by redrawing moral lines around acceptable behavior. </p>
<p>Our evidence suggests this shift enabled previously marginal policy ideas such as a carbon tax and carbon budget to gain greater traction in the debate. It also helped translate McKibben’s radical position into new issues like “stranded assets” and “unburnable carbon,” the idea that existing fossil fuel resources should remain in the ground. </p>
<p>Although these latter concepts are still radical in implication, they adopt the language of financial analysis and appeared in business journals like <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21710632-oil-companies-need-heed-investors-concerns-how-deal-worries-about-stranded">The Economist</a>, <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/12/17/energy-companies-feel-the-burn-from-paris-climate-deal/">Fortune</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-05-10/coal-s-stranded-assets">Bloomberg</a>, which makes them more legitimate within business circles. </p>
<p>Thus, the battle cry of divestment became a call for prudent attention to financial risk. By being addressed in these financial publications, the carriers of the message shifted from grassroots activists to <a href="http://citywire.co.uk/money/ftse-trackers-expose-investors-to-stranded-assets/a964227">investors</a>, <a href="http://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/breaking-news/lloyds-warns-industry-of-stranded-assets-on-global-scale-60931.aspx">insurance companies</a> and even the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/97ba13d4-6772-11e5-97d0-1456a776a4f5">Governor of the Bank of England</a>.</p>
<h2>The upshot</h2>
<p>The radical flank effect and our findings offer some critical insights for social activists. </p>
<p>Social movements typically achieve influence by gaining attention from news media and gaining buy-in from critical supporters. A conventional approach might collapse these goals into a plan to directly challenge specific targets, as when a labor campaign elicits public support to unionize a workplace or an environmental campaign seeks to shut down a specific pipeline. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More radical movements than divestments, such as blaming capitalism for lack of progress on environmental problems, have not been as effective in shaping the climate debate in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/17136785065/in/photolist-s7bujo-rPSfZr-s52voG-rMZv7k-ravY5X-s7gcJi-rajrJ9-s7jrYZ-s7jtUT-rPSdzr-s7gdoe-rajrXA-rajrDE-s7jv22-rMZxat-rPJ8tu-rMZvM8-s7jvat-rMZw1V-rPKj11-rPSg4z-s7gcc6-rPJbqm-rMZybr-s52xeA-rPJ8pw-s7gdCn-rMZwHg-ravXtB-s7gcFn-raw1De-s52wQj-s52xGj-rajts9-s7gcBp-s7geLK-rPKgJC-s7geZk-rbGAA7-s7brB9-s7bsDQ-rbUqn6-rPSewg-s7jtCa-s52wgy-rPKjKN-s7geQc-s7bu1Y-s6VRmd-rVvar9">Stephen Melkisethian</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, our analysis shows the value of distinguishing between challenging specific targets and changing the broader public discourse. Although the divestment campaign chose an objective that was largely impossible to fulfill, its tactics expanded the boundaries of the public debate and enhanced the viability of progressive issues. As such, the radical flank effects social change indirectly by creating opportunities for more moderate groups and issues to become more influential. </p>
<p>But, it is important to note that this works in some circumstances and not others. Radical positions can go so far that they have limited effects on the mainstream, which appears to be the case for Naomi Klein’s book <a href="https://thischangeseverything.org/">This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate</a>. In our data, we found her more extreme calls to “shred capitalism” had a far more limited effect in the public debate. </p>
<p>Our study also suggests that <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/29/16377806/mckibben-effect">indirect attempts to shift the debate</a> may be especially useful in highly polarized issues like U.S. climate politics. In these conditions, direct challenges are likely to meet unyielding resistance, while a more indirect route may create space for incumbents, such as established corporations, opinion leaders and politicians, to positively re-evaluate climate activist positions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An analysis of media coverage provides lessons for how to move the climate debate forward and other highly polarized issues.Todd Schifeling, Assistant Professor at the Fox School of Business, Temple UniversityAndrew J. Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor at the Ross School of Business and Education Director at the Graham Sustainability Institute, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750442017-05-03T01:11:56Z2017-05-03T01:11:56ZWhy America’s public media can’t do its job<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166707/original/file-20170425-13414-1g605i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">PBS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniephung/8036886386">melanie.phung/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Trump administration released its proposed budget in March, it suggested eliminating federal funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB). </p>
<p>“Can we really continue to ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs?” Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, Mick Mulvaney, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/mick-mulvaney-trump-budget-priorities-236117">said in defense of the cuts</a>.</p>
<p>Mulvaney seemed to argue that public media was a luxury for the educated few, rather than a truly public resource. Indeed, since the CPB was first established, the degree to which public media reflects the diversity of the nation has the <a href="http://current.org/series/diversity/">subject of much debate.</a></p>
<p>But it’s not as simple as Mulvaney makes it out to be. <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/budget-bill-retains-funding-for-arts-agencies-public-broadcasting-1202406053/">Though the proposed cuts seem unlikely to go through this year</a>, public media will continue to be at the mercy of political and economic factors that have hampered its ability to fulfill its mission and achieve its goals. </p>
<h2>A mirror for the nation</h2>
<p>When Congress passed the <a href="http://www.cpb.org/aboutpb/act">Public Broadcasting Act of 1967</a> to establish a national, publicly funded media system, there were two clear mandates: to cultivate a more engaged citizen and to affirm the nation’s diversity. </p>
<p>In the network’s <a href="http://current.org/2012/05/national-public-radio-purposes/">original mission statement</a>, NPR architect Bill Siemering described public media as a “necessity for citizens in a democratic society to be enlightened participants.” Unbeholden to the demands of the marketplace, public media would ideally be able to reach audiences that might not be targeted by commercial broadcast networks and their advertisers. This included communities traditionally left out of civic discourse: the uneducated, the poor, the housebound, ethnic minorities and those living in rural areas.</p>
<p>“We try to mirror ALL of the country – perhaps the hardest thing of all,” NPR’s former deputy director Rick Lewis <a href="https://www.amazon.com/This-NPR-First-Forty-Years/dp/081187253X">said in 1970</a>, describing his vision for “Morning Edition.” </p>
<p>To tackle this challenge, the CPB decided its subsidiaries, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), would have a national reach. Meanwhile, they would cultivate member stations rooted in a diverse range of communities across the country. NPR affiliates based in Fresno, California; Mobile, Alabama; or Erie, Pennsylvania might all carry national programs, but they are also tasked with pursuing local stories.</p>
<h2>A precarious funding model</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, speaking to the country’s extraordinarily diverse populations through a single media system has proven tricky. And over the years, public media has ended up tailoring its programs to an almost exclusively upscale audience of baby boomers.</p>
<p>The decision to focus on college-educated listeners and viewers is certainly a function of the CPB’s own economic realities. As communications professor Robert McChensney argued in his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-Economy-Media-Enduring-Emerging/dp/1583671617/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493207698&sr=1-1&keywords=robert+mcchesney+political+economy+of+media">The Political Economy of Media</a>,” American public media has been severely handicapped since its inception.</p>
<p>Unlike the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – which citizens subsidize by paying an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/whoweare/licencefee/">annual television license fee</a> – American public media receives relatively little federal funding, denying it a stable source of income. With federal funding in a constant state of flux, public media has come to rely on income from private sources such as pledge drives and corporate underwriting accounts. For example, in 2015 NPR member stations <a href="http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances">received</a> about 14 percent of their revenues from federal, state and local entities, while 20 percent came from corporations and 37 percent from private donations. </p>
<p>To be economically viable, therefore, public media must focus on affluent, educated listeners. The result is a media system that can, at times, seem woefully out of the touch with nation it purports to represent. </p>
<p>Just as the country is becoming more ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse (<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/03/2016-electorate-will-be-the-most-diverse-in-u-s-history/">a recent Pew study</a> showed that the U.S. electorate in 2016 was the most diverse in the nation’s history), consumers of national public media remain disproportionately white.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NPR has ambitious aspirations, but its audience still skews old and white.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/5116147131">David/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2012/04/10/150367888/black-latino-asian-and-white-diversity-at-npr">According to a 2012 report</a>, the audience for NPR’s member station news programs was 5 percent African-American, 6 percent Latino and 5 percent Asian-American. This disparity is also reflected at the leadership level. <a href="http://current.org/2016/07/drive-for-diversity-demands-courage-commitment/">In an essay</a>, Joseph Tovares, the senior vice president and chief content officer for the CPB, admitted that the inclusion of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans at the general manager level are almost nonexistent at NPR and PBS member stations.</p>
<p>We see these disparities in the programming itself. Like other national media institutions, public media has traditionally struggled to find a way to include the voices of ethnic and racial minorities. While there are some bright spots – including PBS’s <a href="http://pbskids.org/">children’s programming</a> and NPR’s <a href="http://latinousa.org/">Latino USA</a>, the overall diversity efforts seem tepid. <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2012/04/30/151304276/six-national-leaders-and-experts-look-at-diversity-at-npr">In a forum</a> organized by NPR to address public radio’s diversity challenges, sociologist Michael Schudson effectively captured the dilemma:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“No doubt the staff makes an effort to cover issues of special importance to minorities and women, but you suspect that it is a mission and not a habit, and that it feels like a kind of foreign correspondence. You know it can be done well or poorly but, in either case, it is done with the handicap of a largely monochromatic newsroom.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A wavering commitment to diversity?</h2>
<p>Public media realizes that the status quo is a losing strategy. The demographic realities are too sobering. <a href="http://current.org/2015/10/drop-in-younger-listeners-makes-dent-in-npr-news-audience/">NPR projects</a> that by 2020, its stations’ audience of people younger than 45 will be around 30 percent – half of what that audience accounted for in 1985. </p>
<p>To its credit, the CPB has made broadening its appeal a core part of its <a href="http://www.cpb.org/faq">current strategy</a>, which includes what it calls the “three D’s”: digital, diversity and dialogue. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://cdn.nationalpublicmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/NPR.org-and-On-Air-Audience-Profiles.pdf">their own strategic documents</a> provide some insight into just how elastic their definition of inclusion is. For example, NPR’s target audiences still include the “Affluent Business Leader” who is “a c-level employee, has an investment portfolio of $150,000 or more, and holds a leadership position in a club or organization.” Then there’s the “Cultural Connoisseur” who has a postgraduate degree, is more likely to buy tickets for classical music, ballet and opera, and takes more than three vacations a year. For its part, <a href="http://cdn.nationalpublicmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PBS.org-Audience-Profiles.pdf">PBS touts</a> the “Power Mom,” who enjoys outdoor activities and spends a significant amount of time online searching for information on museums and concerts.</p>
<p>In other words, these are not the disenfranchised communities whom the original architects of NPR believed would be served by public media. </p>
<p>As journalism professor Ralph Engelman writes in his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Public-Radio-Television-America-Political/dp/0803954077">Public Radio and Television in America</a>,” today’s public media was born out of the desire to achieve a more democratic version of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/structural-transformation-public-sphere">public sphere</a>. Habermas’ notion of what “public” means was criticized as being reserved for propertied, educated males at the exclusion of the poor and disenfranchised. But by serving those already inclined to participate in civic life, it appears that today’s public media extends – rather than disrupts – this pattern.</p>
<p>Just as we’re witnessing unprecedented attacks on the country’s most disenfranchised communities, this seems like an institutional failure. Legislators are advancing policies designed to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-immigration-detention-deportations-enforcement/">restrict the movements of Latinos and Muslims</a>. Gains made by the LGBTQ community are being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-administration-rolls-back-protections-for-transgender-students/2017/02/22/550a83b4-f913-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html?utm_term=.bceb662bc257">scaled back</a>. There are active efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, eliminate entitlement programs and defund early education programs like Head Start, all of which undermine working-class communities. </p>
<p>Now more than ever, it seems necessary to include the voices – and reach the people – most impacted by these policies. It seems that only by unhitching its funding model from private interests can public media truly fulfill its mission of serving the public at large. But this would require a federal government that’s willing to boost – rather than slash – its funds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Chávez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was founded 50 years ago, it was supposed to reflect the nation’s disparate voices.Christopher Chávez, Assistant Professor of Communications, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/760272017-04-18T15:21:21Z2017-04-18T15:21:21ZThe state of South African journalism: There’s good news and there’s bad news<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164830/original/image-20170411-26715-16fbhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's media landscape has changed fundamentally.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Wits University’s Journalism and Media Studies Department have just published their latest State of the Newsroom report. The annual publication maps key developments in the South African media landscape – from changes in circulation and audiences, to shifts in media ownership, digital trends in the newsroom, transformation of the news media, political, legal and regulatory issues, and the status of media freedom in the country. Politics and Society Editor Thabo Leshilo asked the editor and lead researcher …</em></p>
<p><strong>What is the “State of the Newsroom” report and what does it say?</strong></p>
<p>State of the Newsroom 2015-2016 is called <a href="http://www.journalism.co.za/stateofnewsroom/"><em>Inside/Outside</em> </a> to try catch the dynamic of multiple sources of media and news that we are confronted with, a lot of it falling outside of the “mainstream” news. </p>
<p>Although we still have “newsrooms” in the normal sense of professional journalists and media houses, we also have very vibrant independent media sites and projects – The <a href="https://www.thedailyvox.co.za/">Daily Vox</a>, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/">Daily Maverick</a>, <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/">GroundUp</a>, or projects like <a href="http://www.witsjusticeproject.co.za/">The Justice Project</a> that “write into the news”.</p>
<p>During the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">#FeesMustFall protests</a>, students and academics <a href="https://twitter.com/NMMUFMF">reported </a>from the frontline using social media, and were a source of news from the coalface of the protests for many people. The #FeesMustfall protests showed how independent news producers, like The Daily Vox, could cover unfolding events <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thedailyvox/posts/1021472407978175">more effectively</a> than the mainstream media, and how student social media impacted on the coverage offered by the mainstream. </p>
<p>All of this makes us ask: What exactly do we mean by the “newsroom” today? This State of the Newsroom tries to contribute to the discussion on this phenomenon. </p>
<p><strong>Are there causes for concern? What are the most significant ones, especially in the era of fake news?</strong></p>
<p>If we look at the media landscape generally, there are good and bad signs. For instance, the <a href="http://www.presscouncil.org.za/">Press Council</a> is reinvigorating itself and now has an ombudsperson for online media. The <a href="http://www.sanef.org.za/">South African National Editors Forum</a> has been vocal on issues of media freedom. There are new measurements for broadcast statistics. </p>
<p>I think the diversity of content available is undeniably a good thing. But retrenchments also continue, and newspaper <a href="http://www.bizcommunity.com/PDF/PDF.aspx?l=196&c=15&ct=1&ci=157443">circulation is down</a>. For the first time free newspapers declined in circulation too. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164799/original/image-20170411-23215-tq9rcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164799/original/image-20170411-23215-tq9rcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164799/original/image-20170411-23215-tq9rcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164799/original/image-20170411-23215-tq9rcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164799/original/image-20170411-23215-tq9rcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164799/original/image-20170411-23215-tq9rcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164799/original/image-20170411-23215-tq9rcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>The government has bungled the <a href="http://www.channel24.co.za/TV/News/etv-wins-digital-tv-box-case-as-court-slams-minister-as-confused-20160531">digital terrestrial television process</a> – again. Of course, the SABC remains a mess, and the desire by the state to control what’s news is felt increasingly, whether through its <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/media/2015/10/19/zuma-defends-call-for-media-appeals-tribunal">Media Appeals Tribunal proposal</a>, or <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/apcs-written-submission-south-africa-cybercrimes-a">draft legislation</a> that tries to tighten the grip on the free flow of information in the public interest.</p>
<p>Other signs of concern are the influence management has on editors. Editorial independence in the newsroom is being corroded. </p>
<p>As far as <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2017/04/17/Huffington-Post-SA-blog-calling-for-white-men-to-be-disenfranchised-a-%E2%80%98sad-day-for-journalism%E2%80%99%E2%80%9A-says-Media24-boss">fake news</a> goes, in some ways I think it’s a red herring. I hope that it will only make news consumers more critical and start to question the veracity of what they read through habit. So I think there’s an upside to fake news. </p>
<p>More worrying is when it starts to look like deliberate propaganda. This goes hand-in-hand with the willingness of political parties and other public speakers to be less than truthful with the facts, or deliberately feeding the public false facts. </p>
<p><strong>What is your view on the growth of alternative news platforms, including the ANC’s in-house news service and the government’s increased use of social media to report on themselves</strong></p>
<p>I think we need to be careful about calling some of these initiatives “alternative”, which in South Africa has a positive, politically progressive history in terms of news media. I have mentioned some initiatives that could be described in this way. </p>
<p>But we are also seeing in South Africa what happens all over the world: social media and the internet being used by the state and its allies and supporters to create a counter-narrative to what’s out there. Perhaps we should call it propaganda 2.0. There’s nothing necessarily unusual about that. </p>
<p><strong>What are the positives and dangers associated with such alternative news platforms as seen against the role of a free press in a democracy?</strong></p>
<p>I think we need to start at the beginning and ask ourselves: What does a free press really look like? What do we want? Does the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/pressfreedomday/windhoek.shtml">Windhoek Declaration</a> on press freedom matter anymore? Do journalists care about our human rights? Are they prepared to be watchdogs to those rights? And if they aren’t, is our press free? </p>
<p>Just as there’s no point talking about a free press if there is unfettered state control, there’s no point talking about a free press if our editors are told what’s in the public interest by advertisers and managers. We have the constitutional guarantees, and indices such as <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/regions/sub-saharan-africa">Freedom House</a> more or less say we are free. Certainly more than other Africa states such as Angola or The Gambia or Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>But we also know that <a href="http://www.giswatch.org/en/country-report/communications-surveillance/south-africa">journalists are surveilled</a> – or at least feel they are which is as bad – and that reporters are kicked out of press conferences, and increasingly coming under physical threat when covering events: from students, from party supporters, from police or private security firms. So there’s no generally accepted idea, of a free press floating around.</p>
<p>At the same time, what contribution the media can make to democracy is not necessarily being answered by what’s being published by mainstream media. Instead, as Levi Kabwato, one of the authors in this year’s State of the Newsroom who looked at transformation in the press found, editors say this kind of thing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I received more threats from owners and executives than from politicians in my entire term as editor. The people we had to be careful of were the owners. I received more threatening letters from companies than politicians. Owners are the real threat to media freedom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We have to think of transformation more broadly than just how many black people or women are employed in a newsroom, or in terms of ownership. It’s about content too – what’s covered, and why. </p>
<p>This is why the independent and alternative media platforms are so interesting. Just look what <a href="https://www.thedailyvox.co.za/who-we-are/">The Daily Vox</a> says about itself. It wants to: “put the young citizen at the centre of news”. Or <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/about/">GroundUp</a>: “We report news that Is in the public interest, with an emphasis on the human rights of vulnerable communities.” And they are doing it with a fraction of the budget that big media houses have at their disposal. Good journalism doesn’t necessarily have to cost money.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Finlay is a lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media studies at Wits University.</span></em></p>The growth of new, vibrant, independent media sites and projects in South Africa have challenged conceptions of what a newsroom is. On limited budgets, some even fare better than mainstream media.Alan Finlay, Lecturer: Journalism and Media Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/743992017-04-17T22:54:54Z2017-04-17T22:54:54ZWhat’s behind TV bingeing’s bad rap?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164171/original/image-20170405-14626-1dvy7ng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Get immersed enough in a good show, and you'll enter a 'flow state.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/546923935?size=medium_jpg">'Screen' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Call it Netflix’s spring binge. </p>
<p>At the end of March, Netflix released the critically acclaimed “13 Reasons Why.” April features new shows “Girl Boss” and “Bill Nye Saves the World,” while May’s lineup includes the second season of Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None,” along with the return of binge favorite “House of Cards,” back for its fifth season. </p>
<p>Many will relish getting lost for hours on end in these shows. But others might feel guilty about their extended screen time, seeing it as sign of laziness. Or maybe they’ve seen an article about <a href="http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1142&context=honors-theses">one of those studies linking binge watching to depression</a>. </p>
<p>As a professor of communication studies, I’m interested in understanding the ways people use TV, video games and social media to improve their well-being. And I’ve learned that even though watching TV gets a bad rap as the “junk food” of media diets, it can be good for you – as long as you give yourself permission to indulge. </p>
<h2>Why TV gets the shaft</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I collected some data suggesting that there is, in fact, a double standard for how we think about different media bingeing experiences. We administered a survey that recorded participants’ thoughts about reading or watching TV for the certain amounts of time.</p>
<p>Respondents associated more attributes like laziness and impulsivity with people who consume several hours of a television show in one sitting, compared to those who do the same with novels.</p>
<p>This finding probably comes as no surprise. </p>
<p>Although reading a novel for several hours at a time for entertainment can arguably be just as sedentary and addictive as watching TV, no derogatory term like “bingeing” exists for the act of devouring an entire Harry Potter novel in one night. We simply call it “reading.”</p>
<p>Just think about the pejorative term “binge,” which conjures images of excess and abuse (as with binge eating or binge drinking). Contrast this with “marathon viewing,” which connotes accomplishment, and has traditionally been used to describe the experience of consuming multiple installments of film – not TV series – in rapid succession. </p>
<p>Why is it that we “binge” when we watch a lot of TV, but it’s a “marathon” when we’re watching a bunch of movies?</p>
<p>Perhaps this double standard is rooted in television’s lower status as a source of entertainment. Historically, <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm">TV viewing has been considered a mindless activity</a>, capable of dulling the intellect with “a vast wasteland” of shallow, lowbrow content. Watching TV has also been regarded as a lazy activity that displaces time spent on more active, productive pursuits. Avid viewers of the “boob tube” or “<a href="http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/27/silence_that_idiot_box/">idiot box</a>” will get stereotyped as “lazy couch potatoes.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, headline-grabbing research linking TV viewing to <a href="http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1142&context=honors-theses">depression</a> and <a href="http://www.medicaldaily.com/binge-watching-television-linked-loneliness-and-depression-should-you-get-your-couch-319736">loneliness</a> hasn’t helped binge viewing’s reputation. These correlational studies may give the misleading impression that only depressed or lonely people engage in binge watching – or worse, that binge viewing can make people depressed and lonely. </p>
<p>In truth, it’s just as likely that people who are depressed or lonely due to unrelated life circumstances (say, unemployment or a break-up) simply choose to spend their time binge watching. There’s no evidence to suggest that binge watching actually makes people depressed or lonely. </p>
<h2>The good news about binge watching</h2>
<p>But binge viewing TV has become <a href="http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/binge-watching-us-study-deloitte-1201737245/">popular</a> for a good reason: Despite its negative reputation, television has <a href="http://henryjenkins.org/2017/03/how-did-we-get-so-many-great-television-shows-an-interview-with-uclas-neil-landau-part-one.html">never been better</a>. We are in the midst of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-has-tv-storytelling-become-so-complex-37442">a golden age of television</a>, with a variety of shows that provide a steady diet of novel premises, long-running, elaborate plots and morally complicated characters. Far from dulling the intellect, these shows create more suspense, interest and opportunities for critical engagement.</p>
<p>According to journalist and media theorist Steven Johnson, watching these shows may even <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/watching-tv-makes-you-smarter.html?_r=1">make you smarter</a>. He argues that because television narratives have become increasingly complex, they require viewers to follow more storyline threads and juggle more characters and their relationships. All of this makes the audience more cognitively sophisticated. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164174/original/image-20170405-14620-vxduy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164174/original/image-20170405-14620-vxduy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164174/original/image-20170405-14620-vxduy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164174/original/image-20170405-14620-vxduy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164174/original/image-20170405-14620-vxduy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164174/original/image-20170405-14620-vxduy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164174/original/image-20170405-14620-vxduy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is TV as mindless as it’s made out to be?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/media-zombie-who-has-lost-control-610053851?src=dbeNSgI802NNxaREl41Nsg-1-4">'TV head' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Gorging on stories is pleasurable, too. When individuals binge watch, they are thought to have what’s called a “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)">flow experience</a>.” Flow is an intrinsically pleasurable feeling of being completely immersed in a show’s storyline. In a flow state of mind, viewers intently focus on following the story and it’s easier for them to lose awareness of other things, including time, while they’re wrapped up in viewing. <a href="http://journals.ama.org/doi/10.1509/jm.15.02583">One study</a> found that viewers will continue viewing additional episodes in order to maintain this positive flow state, so there is an addictive quality to binge viewing. Interruptions like advertising can break the continuous viewing cycle by disrupting the flow state and drawing viewers out of the story. Luckily, for TV bingers, Netflix and Hulu are ad-free.</p>
<p>Perhaps one of the greatest benefits binge watching can offer is psychological escape from daily stresses. What better way to decompress than watching four (or seven) straight episodes of “House of Cards”? <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcom.12107/abstract">A 2014 study</a> found that people who were particularly drained after stressful work or school experiences watched TV to recharge and recuperate. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this study also found that TV watching didn’t help everybody. Individuals who bought into the “lazy couch potato” stereotype enjoyed fewer benefits from watching TV. Instead of feeling revitalized after watching TV, they felt guilty. </p>
<p>The researchers believe that the shame associated with TV watching can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, making it hard for viewers to reap psychological benefits. </p>
<p>For this reason, we need to shake the notion that bingeing on stories we engage with on TV is somehow less worthy leisure pursuit than bingeing on stories that we consume other ways, like novels. Immersing ourselves in narratives on TV can be good for us, even in heavy doses, but only if we truly appreciate it for what it is: a pleasure. Not a guilty pleasure, simply a pleasure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Don’t listen to the headlines linking binge watching to depression and loneliness. It can be a positive experience – but only if we think of it as a good thing.Elizabeth Cohen, Assistant Professor of Communication, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/759612017-04-11T01:51:59Z2017-04-11T01:51:59ZThe key to writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning story? Get emotional<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164699/original/image-20170410-8879-nxxks2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bust of newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer looks on as reporters look through a box containing the announcements of the 1996 Pulitzer Prizes at Columbia University.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/8c070949fce6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/489/0">AP Photo/Wally Santana</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2017 Pulitzer Prizes <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/10/523293420/here-are-the-winners-of-the-2017-pulitzer-prizes">have just been announced</a>, and this year’s winners of the prestigious award include Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter Eric Eyre for his <a href="http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms-poured-780m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of-overdoses">investigative report</a> on the drug companies that flooded West Virginia with opioids and New York Times Magazine writer C.J. Chivers for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/magazine/afghanistan-soldier-ptsd-the-fighter.html">his article</a> about a veteran of the war in Afghanistan suffering from PTSD.</p>
<p>I’ve done research on <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1464884912448918">award-winners</a> for some time, analyzing Pulitzers granted since 1995 (the first year for which award-winning stories are available through the organization’s <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2016">online archive</a>). In studying the winning stories, we’re able to see what gets recognized as good journalism. </p>
<p>My research reveals something surprising: What distinguishes Pulitzer Prize-winning stories is not only painstaking journalistic work on important social issues, but also the use of emotional storytelling. </p>
<p>This is surprising because U.S. journalism <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/225193">has long championed its objectivity</a>. And because objectivity tends to be seen as emotionless, emotional storytelling <a href="http://future.arts.monash.edu/journalism/the-rise-of-storytelling-in-the-digital-age-of-journalism/">tends to be viewed as anathema to good journalism</a>. </p>
<p>The winning stories, however, upend this narrative, showing that it’s possible to retain objectivity and also stir the feelings of readers.</p>
<h2>An objective framework</h2>
<p>The journalistic goal of objectivity <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/146488490100200201">first emerged around the end of the 19th century</a>. It was motivated, in part, by a desire to broaden newspaper readership base by asserting the independence of the press from political parties and ideologies. And in order to maintain objectivity, the thinking went that journalism should be based on cold, hard facts. Journalists needed repress their own views and feelings. </p>
<p>According to standard practice of news reporting, the information should be delivered in an “<a href="http://www.poynter.org/2003/writing-from-the-top-down-pros-and-cons-of-the-inverted-pyramid/12754/">inverted pyramid</a>”-style lead paragraph, telling readers the most important facts first. The idea is that the objective style sends a strong signal about the independence and trustworthiness of journalism – something that, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-the-debate-over-journalism-post-trump-gets-wrong/">in the age of fake news</a>, may be more important now than ever. </p>
<p>However, the objective style of journalism <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0r-IAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=objective+journalism+is+dry+and+boring&source=bl&ots=JZU-KAb1AC&sig=pzXBt_jcqBlHLAAWxsz1ytNxMAQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBgPve4JnTAhWEC8AKHSEDCx4Q6AEIIzAB#v=onepage&q=objective%2">has been criticized for its dullness</a>, for “freeze-drying the topic and manufacturing boring journalism.” </p>
<h2>Getting personal</h2>
<p>Instead of relying on the edicts of objectivity, award-winning journalism draws heavily on telling personal stories about people caught up in news events. My research shows that across hard news award categories – feature, explanatory, international, national, public service and investigative reporting – Pulitzer Prize winners eschew the standard “inverted pyramid.” Instead, they’ll often rely on what journalists refer to as an “anecdotal lead.” </p>
<p>An anecdotal lead draws the reader into a story with wider sociopolitical implications by illustrating how it affects a particular individual or group.</p>
<p>We see it in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/magazine/afghanistan-soldier-ptsd-the-fighter.html">the winner of this year’s feature writing award</a>, C.J. Chivers’ “The Fighter,” which shows the horrors of war by telling the story of one marine’s descent into violence after his service in Afghanistan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Sam Siatta was deep in a tequila haze, so staggeringly drunk that he would later say he retained no memory of the crime he was beginning to commit. It was a few minutes after 2 a.m. on April 13, 2014. Siatta had just forced his way into a single-story home in Normal, Ill., a college town on the prairie about 130 miles southwest of Chicago. A Marine Corps veteran of the war in Afghanistan, he was a 24-year-old freshman studying on the G.I. Bill at the university nearby, Illinois State. He had a record of valor in infantry combat and no criminal past.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, the Associated Press won the coveted <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/associated-press">Public Service Pulitzer</a> last year for a series exposing the grueling labor conditions in the seafood industry. The series <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/associated-press">opened</a> with the experience of Burmese slaves forced to work in Indonesia:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The Burmese slaves sat on the floor and stared through the rusty bars of their locked cage, hidden on a tiny tropical island thousands of miles from home. Just a few yards away, other workers loaded cargo ships with slave-caught seafood that clouds the supply networks of major supermarkets, restaurants and even pet stores in the United States. But the eight imprisoned men were considered flight risks – laborers who might dare run away. They lived on a few bites of rice and curry a day in a space barely big enough to lie down, stuck until the next trawler forces them back to sea.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164708/original/image-20170410-31911-3anlu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for articles documenting the use of slave labor in the commercial seafood industry in Indonesia and Thailand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Pulitzers-/b4da40c860354944a9304ee68a101aa1/27/0">AP Photo/Dita Alangkara</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By using personal stories to elicit empathy for individuals, these stories all enable us to understand how real people are caught up in the large, bewildering forces that drive our world. </p>
<h2>Outsourcing emotions</h2>
<p><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1464884912448918">Of the stories I analyzed</a>, more than three in five used anecdotal leads, while just under one in five drew on the conventional inverted pyramid. Stories of individuals caught up in the news were featured in 62.4 percent of stories. </p>
<p>It’s a trend that has been remarkably stable since the mid-1990s. </p>
<p>This type of storytelling is just one of several markers of what I have referred to as a “strategic ritual of emotionality”: an institutionalized and systematic practice of journalists infusing their reporting with emotion.</p>
<p>However, this doesn’t mean that the journalists write about their own emotions. Instead, they “outsource” emotions to the people whose stories they tell. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1464884912448918">According to my research</a>, stories often use emotional language – for example, quoting worried investors, frightened children, hopeful villagers or anxious parents – but never in reference to the journalist’s emotions. What this suggests is that award-winning journalism is able to both maintain its allegiance to objectivity and tell emotional stories. </p>
<p>I’m not the first to notice the emotionality of award-winning journalism. For example, the journalist and academic Susan Shapiro <a href="http://www.courses.washington.edu/intro2ds/Readings/4_Sob-sisters.doc">has criticized</a> the “sob sister” style of journalism which of is “calculated to snag readers by the emotions and not let them go until they burst, on cue, into tears.”</p>
<p>What my research suggests, however, is that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism’s use of emotional storytelling is not merely focused on emotional appeals for their own sake. Rather, eliciting empathy from readers enables journalism to render abstract and complex events understandable and relatable. </p>
<p>In a world where our experiences and backgrounds are so varied, this type of storytelling is indispensable. And if journalism can successfully tap into universal emotions to bridge divides and elicit mutual understanding, such an achievement truly deserves an award.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karin Wahl-Jorgensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>U.S. journalism has long championed an allegiance to cold objectivity. But one researcher analyzed Pulitzer Prize-winning stories from the past 20 years and found that they’re suffused with emotion.Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Professor; Director of Research Development and Environment, School of Journalism, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/755832017-04-06T01:05:15Z2017-04-06T01:05:15ZTechniques of 19th-century fake news reporter teach us why we fall for it today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163938/original/image-20170404-29081-lbhfsp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">German journalist and novelist Theodor Fontane.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Theodor_Fontane.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump appears to have a straightforward definition of fake news: Stories that are critical of him or his presidency are <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/844886082663698436">“fake,” while those that praise him are “real.”</a></p>
<p>On the surface, the logic doesn’t hold up. But at the same time, the way Trump thinks about fake news points to a key reason why it works. </p>
<p>In my recent research, I’ve been reverse-engineering fabricated news articles from the 19th century to analyze their logic, and I’ve discovered that fake news is effective because it tells you something about the world that you, in a way, already know. This may sound counterintuitive. But a look into the work of a 19th-century fake news writer helps explain this phenomenon – and what’s going on today.</p>
<h2>The fake foreign correspondent</h2>
<p>Fake news flourished in the 19th century. During that period, newspaper and magazine circulation skyrocketed due to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qVrUTUelE6YC&pg=PA508&lpg=PA508&dq=printing+technology+nineteenth+century+newspaper+circulation&source=bl&ots=PYyiK2ySpF&sig=-0x5szIhBbNuRYzZAylgsFp8QXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3y_SXuYvTAhWK6YMKHUjrDVwQ6AEISTAJ#v=onepage&q=printing%20technology%20nineteenth%20century%20newspaper%20circulation&f=false">innovations in printing technology and cheaper paper</a>. Professional news agencies set up shop in major cities all over the world, while the telegraph enabled messages to be rapidly sent across continents. </p>
<p>Reporting became increasingly standardized, with newspapers generally covering the same topics, adopting the same formulaic language and presenting stories in the same formats. Competition in this emerging, fast-paced news business was tough, and with growing standardization, editors needed to figure out ways to stand out from the crowd.</p>
<p>One strategy involved sending foreign correspondents abroad. The idea was that the correspondents could provide stories and analysis from a personal point of view that readers might find more appealing than the standard, impersonal reports that emerged from news agencies.</p>
<p>However, sending a reporter abroad was expensive, and not every paper could shoulder the cost. Those that couldn’t found a creative and much cheaper solution: They hired local staff writers to pretend they were sending dispatches from abroad. By the 1850s, the phenomenon was so widespread in Germany that it had become its own genre – the “unechte Korrespondenz,” or <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/3469">“fake foreign correspondent’s letter,”</a> as people in the German news trade called it. </p>
<h2>How to make a 19th-century fake news story</h2>
<p>One such fake correspondent was Theodor Fontane, a German pharmacist-turned-journalist who would go on to write some of the most important German Realist novels. (If you’ve never heard of Fontane, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/10/the-dickens-of-berlin/378413/">think of him as the German Dickens</a>.) </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163940/original/image-20170404-5715-ko471m.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163940/original/image-20170404-5715-ko471m.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163940/original/image-20170404-5715-ko471m.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163940/original/image-20170404-5715-ko471m.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163940/original/image-20170404-5715-ko471m.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163940/original/image-20170404-5715-ko471m.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163940/original/image-20170404-5715-ko471m.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The front page of a 1914 edition of the Kreuzzeitung.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kreuz_1914_0708.gif">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1860, Fontane – struggling to make ends meet – joined the staff of the Kreuzzeitung, an ultra-conservative Berlin newspaper. The paper assigned him to cover England, and for a decade, he published story after story “from” London, spellbinding his readers with “personal” accounts of dramatic events, like the devastating Tooley Street Fire of 1861. </p>
<p>But during the entire decade, he never actually crossed the English Channel.</p>
<p>The stunning thing – and the part that resonates today – is how Fontane pulled it off. Fontane’s story about the Great Fire illustrates his process. By the time he decided to write about the fire, it had already been raging for days, and reports about it were in virtually all the papers. </p>
<p>Fontane sifted through these existing accounts to get a sense for what readers already knew about the catastrophe. He cut up the old articles, picked out the most relevant passages, and glued them together for his own account – this becomes clear from mapping his piece onto these sources. Then, to elevate the drama, he wrote some new passages with details and characters that were completely fabricated, such as a “companion” with special privileges who allegedly helped him cross the police cordon roping off the burning area. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163919/original/image-20170404-5702-1w3bxrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163919/original/image-20170404-5702-1w3bxrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163919/original/image-20170404-5702-1w3bxrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163919/original/image-20170404-5702-1w3bxrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163919/original/image-20170404-5702-1w3bxrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163919/original/image-20170404-5702-1w3bxrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163919/original/image-20170404-5702-1w3bxrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1861 Great Fire of Tooley Street.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tooley_Street_fire_by_the_end_of_the_second_day.JPG">Stephencdickson/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fontane then reported what he “saw”: (what follows is a translation from his German article): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I went to the scene today, and it’s a terrible sight. One sees the burned buildings like a city in a crater […]. Fires live on eerily in the deep, and at any moment a new flame can burst forth out of every mound of ash.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>His readers probably believed him because his story confirmed a lot of things they already knew from prior press coverage. Fontane was careful to use familiar imagery, stereotypical descriptions and well-known facts about London. Meanwhile, he dressed up these familiar elements to make them more entertaining. </p>
<p>His own piece was styled in such a way that it fit right in with what traveled through the 19th-century mass media communications circuit. </p>
<h2>Echoes today</h2>
<p>Today’s fake news stories are also written from inside a closed mass media system. It’s one of the main reasons why these yarns – <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/did-the-pope-endorse-trump/">even the absurd ones</a> – seem credible enough to get picked up: They recombine news bits, names, images, people and sites that we have already seen in similar contexts. Once this backdrop of credibility has been established, the sensational, made-up elements can be introduced all the more convincingly.</p>
<p>Take one of the fake news masterpieces from last year’s campaign trail, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/fake-news-hillary-clinton-cameron-harris.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=1">the bogus story about stacks of ballot boxes</a> that had “turned up” in a warehouse in Ohio and supposedly contained fraudulent Clinton votes. Cameron Harris, the 23-year-old college graduate who authored the story, later explained to The New York Times how he had approached the topic: He knew he had to connect his story to a familiar narrative in order to get it off the ground.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/fake-news-hillary-clinton-cameron-harris.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=1">And according to Harris</a>, that narrative had been established by Donald Trump’s repeated claims of a “rigged” election: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Trump was saying ‘rigged election, rigged election.’ People were predisposed to believe Hillary Clinton could not win except by cheating.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Just like Fontane with his “companion,” Harris also invented a guy – an electrical worker and everyman – who stumbled across the ballot boxes in a little-used part of a warehouse. Harris quoted him and even added a photograph, showing a guy standing behind a stack of black plastic boxes. </p>
<p>No matter that Harris had found the image on Google and that it pictured a British man: It fit with how readers might imagine an electrical worker and ballot boxes. </p>
<p>Producing this sort of fake news has become easier because there is no longer a way to avoid mass media. In a 1994 lecture, the sociologist Niklas Luhmann <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=1302">famously declared</a>, “Whatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which we live, we know from mass media.” </p>
<p>Think about it: How much do you truly know firsthand, from personal experience, compared to what you know from schoolbooks, television, newspapers and the web? </p>
<p>We like to think that we select the media that then shape and become part of our reality. That’s no longer how it works, though. Since the second half of the 19th century, the mass media have been shaping their own reality and narratives.</p>
<p>In early 2016, Americans spent <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/the-total-audience-report-q1-2016.html">almost 11 hours each day</a> staring at screens. These data do not even reflect <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2017/the-nielsen-total-audience-report-q4-2016.html">the phenomenal increase in news consumption</a> during the tail end of the presidential campaign and the election. And in this vortex, it can be tough to discern what’s fake and what’s not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Petra S. McGillen is affiliated with the Theodor Fontane–Arbeitsstelle at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany. </span></em></p>Theodor Fontane was a German newspaper’s England correspondent – who reported ‘from’ London without leaving his Berlin desk.Petra S. McGillen, Assistant Professor of German Studies, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/749302017-03-23T02:25:11Z2017-03-23T02:25:11ZFactCheck Q&A: Has confidence in the media in Australia dropped lower than in the United States?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161919/original/image-20170322-5395-1rz8z1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs Zed Seselja discusses faith in media on Q&A with fellow panellist Claire Wardle from First Draft, which targets misinformation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Q&A</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>The Conversation fact-checks claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9:35pm. Thank you to everyone who sent us quotes for checking via <a href="http://www.twitter.com/conversationEDU">Twitter</a> using hashtags #FactCheck and #QandA, on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a> or by <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">email</a>.</strong></p>
<hr>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cCwC1qRj638?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Excerpt from Q&A, March 20, 2017.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve seen various surveys right around the world showing that confidence in media has dropped in recent years. In fact, I saw a survey recently that showed actually in Australia it had dropped and it’s lower than in the United States. Obviously, there will be different indexes. <strong>– Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs, Zed Seselja, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4624231.htm">speaking on Q&A</a>, March 20, 2017.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a wide-ranging Q&A discussion on misinformation, disinformation and trust in media, the assistant minister for social services and multicultural affairs, Zed Seselja, said that surveys showed confidence in media has fallen around the world. In Australia, he said, it has dropped lower than in the US.</p>
<p>Is he right?</p>
<h2>Checking the source</h2>
<p>The Conversation asked Seselja’s office for sources to support his statement but didn’t hear back before deadline. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, there is at least one recent source supporting his statement about “confidence” in the “media”. </p>
<h2>The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer</h2>
<p>The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer <a href="http://www.edelman.com/news/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-global-implosion/">report</a>, released by global public relations firm <a href="http://www.edelman.com/who-we-are/about-us/">Edelman</a> in January this year, concluded Australians are less trusting of the media than their US counterparts, when asked if they trusted the media to do the right thing.</p>
<p>The data in the report is drawn from more than 33,000 respondents to an online survey conducted in 28 countries in 2016. They looked at trust in various institutions among the “<a href="http://www.edelman.com/news/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-global-implosion/">informed public</a>” (defined as highly-paid, college-educated, people who read or watch the news and actively follow public policy) and also among the general population.</p>
<p>Respondents were asked to indicate how much they trust various institutions (including the media) to do what is right. The chart below, taken from the report, shows trust in media in Australia is indeed lower than in the US, as Seselja said. The figure for Australia is 32% among the general population, while for the US trust in media is at 47% among the general population.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161944/original/image-20170322-16490-c7civ3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.slideshare.net/EdelmanInsights/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-global-results-71035413?ref=http://www.edelman.com/global-results/">2017 Edelman Trust Barometer report</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Edelman Australia’s chief executive <a href="http://www.edelman.com/post/trust-free-falls-in-the-land-down-under/">Steven Spurr said</a> at the time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A real standout this year was Australians’ loss of trust in media. Among informed publics (from a 54% trust level last year), media now sits at 40%, a whopping 14-point decline. Among the general population, trust in media at 32% is among the lowest levels globally, 11 points below the global average of 43% and a 10 point drop from 2016.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Edelman’s 2017 report recorded a drop in trust <a href="http://www.edelman.com/news/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-global-implosion/">globally</a> in government, business, media and non-government organisations between 2016 and 2017. The decline in trust had been accelerated by the state of the local media industry, the proliferation of fake news and growing trust in search engines over journalists, Spurr <a href="http://www.edelman.com/post/trust-free-falls-in-the-land-down-under/">said</a>.</p>
<h2>Other sources</h2>
<p>As Seselja also correctly pointed out, there are different indexes, and different ways of looking at confidence and trust in the media and journalism. </p>
<p>Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism publishes a <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/">Digital News Report</a> each year, which measures general trust in news media. Its most recent report was released in June 2016. </p>
<p>The research was <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2016/survey-methodology-2016/">conducted</a> using an online questionnaire of more than 50,000 people in 26 countries in January and February 2016. Around 2000 people were surveyed in each of the participating countries.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2016/australia-2016/">Australian results</a> were compiled by academics at the University of Canberra – and those tell a different story about “trust” and “journalism” to the Edelman survey.</p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2016/australia-2016/">the Reuters report</a> found that general trust in news media had Australia was low compared to most OECD countries – but <em>above</em> the United States. </p>
<p>The US had general news trust at 33%, Australia at 43%, Ireland at 50%, UK at 50% and Canada at 55%, as this chart from the report shows:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161948/original/image-20170322-16514-65yp0v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Digital-News-Report-2016.pdf?utm_source=digitalnewsreport.org&utm_medium=referral">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report 2016</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The same report found that Australians trusted news organisation more than individual journalists. A total of 39% trusted news organisations and 32% trusted journalists, as this chart from the report shows:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161945/original/image-20170322-16481-19jub58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Digital-News-Report-2016.pdf?utm_source=digitalnewsreport.org&utm_medium=referral">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report 2016</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>It will be interesting to see if the Reuters Institute’s 2017 results, which are due to be released in July, accord with the 2017 Edelman report’s findings. </p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Zed Seselja was right: “various surveys right around the world” have shown declining confidence in media in recent years, while at least one recent survey (the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer report) shows that confidence in the media Australia has dropped and is lower than in the United States.</p>
<p>The minister also correctly noted there are different indexes of trust in the media and journalism, which have different methods (and reach different conclusions). For example, the <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2016/australia-2016/">2016 Digital News Report</a> found that general trust in news media had Australia was low compared to other OECD countries, but above the United States. <strong>– Alexandra Wake</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a sound analysis of the varying global indices that can get us closer to understanding different levels of confidence in the media in the US and Australia. At face value, Zed Seselja’s comments can be supported and the analysis above shows this. </p>
<p>The very recent work of University of Canberra scholar Caroline Fisher in her recent Communication, Research and Practice journal <a href="http://www.canberra.edu.au/researchrepository/items/b8c12a88-0668-4490-95ca-da5d906851c2/1/">article</a> gets to the heart of why the question of media trust is a tricky topic for several reasons. </p>
<p>First, there is no agreed definition on the measure of “trust” (or confidence) in the media. Different survey questions get different answers depending on how respondents think about “media”.</p>
<p>When some people think of media they might be referring to news media like ABC TV news, but for others, media could be the Herald Sun, or even for some, it might mean Facebook. </p>
<p>Another consideration is the inference about what low levels of public trust in the media <em>actually</em> means. It can’t necessarily be assumed to be a bad thing (although it could be). For example, empirical evidence outlined in Jan Müller’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2_JmjnB-AEAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA5&dq=media+trust+and+authoritarian+regimes&ots=P2cYZNpXeb&sig=bXDpUPszEo1fbqSDFcbNRmSebbo#v=onepage&q=authortarian&f=false">book</a> on media trust shows that the highest levels of media trust are in authoritarian regimes, not democracies.</p>
<p>Finally, academic <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Z87HrlkBZiEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=trust+in+media+journalism+studies&ots=7eaW5verBj&sig=jeIYRlQD827R_wRVdNg5vDmq4Ck#v=onepage&q=world%20values&f=false">Thomas Hanitzch</a>, who studies media trust, warns that levels of public confidence in the media have developed differently depending on contextual factors and thus comparing two countries can be quite misleading. <strong>– Andrea Carson</strong></p>
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<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Conversation FactCheck is accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network.</span>
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<p><em>The Conversation’s FactCheck unit is the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of the first worldwide to be accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network, an alliance of fact-checkers hosted at the Poynter Institute in the US. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-conversations-factcheck-granted-accreditation-by-international-fact-checking-network-at-poynter-74363">Read more here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Q&A, government minister Zed Seselja remarked that surveys showed confidence in media has fallen globally. In Australia, he said, it has dropped lower than in the US. Is he right?Alexandra Wake, Senior lecturer, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/724012017-02-15T02:01:54Z2017-02-15T02:01:54ZWhy America needs Marvel superhero Kamala Khan now more than ever<p>During the first few weeks of the Trump administration, we’ve seen <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38781302">increased pressure</a> on Muslim and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/ice-raids-enforcement-arrest-numbers/">immigrant communities</a> in the United States. </p>
<p>In the face of these threats, which Marvel superhero might be best equipped to defend the people, ideals and institutions under attack? Some comic fans and critics <a href="http://www.themarysue.com/we-need-kamala-khan/">are pointing to Kamala Khan</a>, the new Ms. Marvel.</p>
<p>Khan, the brainchild of comic writer G. Willow Wilson and editor Sana Amanat, is a revamp of the classic Ms. Marvel character (originally named <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGLzmnmkq5g">Carol Danvers</a> and created in 1968). First introduced in early 2014, Khan is a Muslim, Pakistani-American teenager who fights crime in Jersey City and occasionally teams up with the Avengers. </p>
<p>Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, <a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/2/14457384/kamala-khan-captain-america-protest-icon">fans have created images of Khan</a> tearing up a photo of the president, punching him (evoking <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c7/Captainamerica1.jpg">a famous 1941 cover</a> of Captain America punching Hitler) and grieving in her room. But the new Ms. Marvel’s significance extends beyond symbolism. </p>
<p>In Kamala Khan, Wilson and Amanat have created a superhero whose patriotism and contributions to Jersey City emerge because of her Muslim heritage, not despite it. She challenges the assumptions many Americans have about Muslims and is a radical departure from how the media tend to depict Muslim-Americans. She shows how Muslim-Americans and immigrants are not forces that threaten communities – <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/826774668245946368">as some would argue</a> – but are people who can strengthen and preserve them. </p>
<h2>Superhero-in-training</h2>
<p>After inhaling a mysterious gas, Kamala Khan discovers she can stretch, enlarge, shrink and otherwise manipulate her body. Like many superheroes, she chooses to keep her identity a secret. She selects the Ms. Marvel moniker in homage to the first Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, who has since given up the name in favor of becoming Captain Marvel. Khan cites her family’s safety and her desire to lead a normal life, while also fearing that “the NSA will wiretap our mosque or something.” </p>
<p>As she wrestles with her newfound powers, her parents grow concerned about broken curfews and send her to the local imam for counseling. Rather than reinforcing her parents’ curfew or prying the truth from Khan, though, Sheikh Abdullah says, “I am asking you for something more difficult. If you insist on pursuing this thing you will not tell me about, do it with the qualities benefiting an upright young woman: courage, strength, honesty, compassion and self-respect.”</p>
<p>Her experience at the mosque becomes an important step on her journey to superheroism. Sheikh Abdullah contributes to her education, as does <a href="http://theaerogram.com/kamala-k-saves-day-now-let-take-selfie/">Wolverine</a>. Islam is not a restrictive force in her story. Instead, the religion models for Khan many of the traits she needs in order to become an effective superhero. When her mother learns the truth about why her daughter is sneaking out, she “thank[s] God for having raised a righteous child.” </p>
<p>The comics paint an accurate portrait of Jersey City. Her brother Aamir is a committed Salafi (a conservative and sometimes <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-d-taylor/dont-fear-all-salafi-muslims_b_9042496.html">controversial</a> branch of Sunni Islam) and member of his university’s Muslim Student Association. Her best friend and occasional love interest, Bruno, works at a corner store and comes from Italian roots. The city’s diversity helps Kamala as she learns to be a more effective superhero. But it also rescues her from being a stand-in for all Muslim-American or Jersey City experiences. </p>
<h2>Fighting a ‘war on terror culture’</h2>
<p>Kamala’s brown skin and costume – self-fashioned from an old burkini – point to Marvel Comics’ desire to diversify its roster of superheroes (as well as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/books/black-panther-marvel-comics-roxane-gay-ta-nehisi-coates-wakanda.html">writers and artists</a>). As creator Sana Amanat <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWxWwewXJbU">explained</a> on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” last month, representation is a powerful thing, especially in comics. It matters when readers who feel marginalized can see people like themselves performing heroic acts. </p>
<p>As one of <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/">3.3 million Muslim-Americans</a>, Khan flips the script on what Moustafa Bayoumi, author of “This Muslim American Life,” <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479835645/">calls</a> a “war on terror culture” that sees Muslim-Americans “not as complex human being[s] but only as purveyor[s] of possible future violence.” </p>
<p>Bayoumi’s book echoes other studies that detail the heightened suspicion and racial profiling Muslim-Americans have faced since 9/11, whether it’s <a href="http://today.uconn.edu/2014/06/great-resume-too-bad-about-your-religion/">in the workplace</a> or <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-levitt/the-nypd-spies-spooks-and_b_950448.html">interactions with the police</a>. Each time there’s been a high-profile terrorist attack, these experiences, <a href="http://testkitchen.huffingtonpost.com/islamophobia/#">coupled with hate crimes and speech</a>, intensify. Political rhetoric – like Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/20/donald-trump-says-hed-absolutely-require-muslims-to-register/">proposal to have a Muslim registry</a> or his <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/22/donald-trump/fact-checking-trumps-claim-thousands-new-jersey-ch/">lie</a> that thousands of Muslims cheered from Jersey City rooftops after the Twin Towers fell – only fans the flames. </p>
<p>Scholars of media psychology see this suspicion fostered, in part, by negative representations of Muslims in both <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-bad-news-for-one-muslim-american-is-bad-news-for-all-muslims-61358">news media outlets and popular culture</a>, where they are depicted as <a href="https://www.wired.com/2011/09/holy-terror-frank-miller">bloodthirsty</a> <a href="http://www.npr.org/books/titles/387486402/im-not-a-terrorist-but-ive-played-one-on-tv-memoirs-of-a-middle-eastern-funny-ma#excerpt">terrorists</a> or <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article73969887.html">slavish informants</a> to a non-Muslim hero. </p>
<p>These stereotypes are so entrenched that a single positive Muslim character cannot counteract their effects. In fact, some point to the dangers of “balanced” representations, arguing that confronting stereotypes with wholly positive images only enforces <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707326/">a simplistic division</a> between “good” and “bad” Muslims. </p>
<h2>Unbreakable</h2>
<p>Kamala Khan, however, signals an important development in cultural representations of Muslim-Americans. It’s not just because she is a powerful superhero instead of a terrorist. It’s because she is, at the same time, a clumsy teenager who makes a mountain of mistakes while trying to balance her abilities, school, friends and family. And it’s because Wilson surrounds Kamala with a diverse assortment of characters who demonstrate the array of heroic (and not-so-heroic) actions people can take. </p>
<p>For example, in one of Ms. Marvel’s most powerful narrative arcs, a planet attacks New York, leading to destruction eerily reminiscent of 9/11. Kamala works to protect Jersey City while realizing that her world has changed – and will change – irrevocably. </p>
<p>Carol Danvers appears to fill Kamala in on the gravity of the situation, telling her, “The fate of the world is out of your hands. It always was. But your fate – what you decide to do right now – is still up to you … Today is the day you stand up.” Kamala connects the talk with Sheikh Abdullah’s lectures about the value of one’s deeds, once again linking her superhero and religious training to rise to the occasion. In both cases, the lectures teach Kamala to take a stand to protect her community. </p>
<p>Arriving at the high school gym now serving as a safe haven for Jersey City residents, Kamala realizes her friends and classmates have been inspired by her heroism. They safely transport their neighbors to the gym while outfitting the space with water, food, dance parties and even a “non-denominational, non-judgmental prayer area.” The community response prompts Kamala to realize that “even if things are profoundly not okay, at least we’re not okay together. And even if we don’t always get along, we’re still connected by something you can’t break. Something there isn’t even a word for. Something … beautiful.” </p>
<p>Kamala Khan is precisely the hero America needs today, but not because of a bat sign in the sky or any single definitive image. She is, above all, committed to the idea that every member of her faith, her generation, and her city has value and that their lives should be respected and protected. She demonstrates that the most heroic action is to face even the most despair-inducing challenges of the world head on while standing up for – and empowering – every vulnerable neighbor, classmate or stranger. She shows us how diverse representation can transform into action and organization that connect whole communities “by something you can’t break.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie M. Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Marvel superhero directly confronts a ‘war on terror culture’ that regards Muslim-Americans as threats.Katie M. Logan, Assistant Professor of Focused Inquiry, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/684962016-11-09T19:10:57Z2016-11-09T19:10:57ZHow Donald Trump used the media and the ‘industry of outrage’ to win the US presidency<p>The media as an institution in the United States is undoubtedly in a deplorable condition, but not for the reasons asserted by Donald Trump.</p>
<p>If anything, Trump has been the beneficiary of the media’s failings.</p>
<p>High on the list of these failings is what The Economist three weeks ago called “<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/business/21708718-some-americans-are-getting-rich-pushing-politics-extremes-business-outrage">the business of outrage</a>”.</p>
<p>Individual media personalities such as the radio shock jock Rush Limbaugh and right wing populist copycats Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have made global reputations and large fortunes for themselves as purveyors of outrage.</p>
<p>Limbaugh is reported to have 13.25 million regular weekly listeners, an audience size guaranteed to generate a mighty revenue stream. He is also reported to be on an 8 year US$400 million contract, and is <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/rush-limbaugh/">listed by Forbes magazine</a> as the 10th highest earning celebrity in the world.</p>
<p>Online entrepreneurs such as <a href="http://www.drudgereport.com/">Matt Drudge</a> jumped on the outrage bandwagon, adding to its momentum.</p>
<p>Turbocharging the outrage industry has been Fox News, the creation of Rupert Murdoch and a former Republican operative, Roger Ailes. Under the ludicrously misleading slogan of “balance” they combined the dynamics of talk back radio with the visual power of television and a bank of outspokenly conservative commentators to create the highest rating cable news channel in the US.</p>
<p>Factual accuracy hasn’t much to do with what these propagandists publish under the guise of journalism. Drudge has said that only 80% of his material is verified. Even if we accept that optimistic assessment, how do we know which 80%?</p>
<p>In the midst of voting in the current presidential election, Limbaugh claimed that former Republican president George W. Bush and his wife Laura voted for Hillary Clinton, a claim <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/08/media/george-w-bush-rush-limbaugh-hillary-clinton/">immediately repudiated</a> by their spokesperson.</p>
<p>The outrage industry has added fuel to a fiery political atmosphere in the US, but of course much bigger forces provided the ignition. The world has already seen the evidence of this in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-is-on-britain-votes-to-leave-the-eu-experts-respond-61576">Brexit vote</a>, in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/expert-views-of-occupy-wall-street-3891">Occupy Wall Street</a> movement and more recently in the success of racist and anti immigration demagoguery.</p>
<p>Like Trump, the outrage industry has exploited the completely understandable resentment of millions in rich countries who feel left behind by globalisation and sacrificed by governments on the altar of economic rationalism.</p>
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<p>To make it worse, Trump’s exploitation has been characterised by racism, religious bigotry and a complete absence of constructive policy responses to the political crisis thus induced. Instead, he proposed a wall between the US and Mexico, vowed to reject international trade agreements, made bamboozling abstractions about “making America great again” and sowed doubts about the legitimacy of the American electoral and congressional processes.</p>
<p>In these ways, Trump has been able to channel and amplify the outrage of those left behind, and in doing so has placed institutions of American democracy under siege.</p>
<p>Not all elements of the US media are participants in this destructive project. But many have gone along for the ride with Trump – his various atrocities having been good for ratings and circulation, and ultimately for revenue.</p>
<p>An honourable exception has been The New York Times. In late September, it declared Trump to be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/opinion/why-donald-trump-should-not-be-president.html">unfit for the presidency</a>, describing him as “a man who dwells in bigotry, bluster and false promises”. Two days later, it enumerated what it said were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/opinion/campaign-stops/the-lies-trump-told.html">27 lies</a> told by Trump in the course of the second presidential debate.</p>
<p>The Washington Post also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-is-a-unique-threat-to-american-democracy/2016/07/22/a6d823cc-4f4f-11e6-aa14-e0c1087f7583_story.html">took a stand</a> against Trump.</p>
<p>It was too late. It played into the hands of Trump as further evidence of the “liberal” media’s participation in a grand conspiracy against the American people, a conspiracy to which Congress and the Administration were also said to be parties.</p>
<p>The ease with which Trump has been able to sweep aside what he reviles as the corrupt media is evidence of a loss of public trust in the fourth estate. It will be the media’s task to rebuild that trust from the ruins of this campaign.</p>
<p>A particularly difficult challenge for the media will be creating an ethical framework about how to respond when a public figure tramples on all the conventions of democratic politics. Before this election, it was generally enough for the leading newspapers to report a candidate’s behaviour and statements in the news pages, and then make separate judgements in the opinion pages.</p>
<p>In the face of the Trump onslaught and the unrestrained outpourings of the outrage industry, this has seemed insipid and inadequate. But does an ethical media organisation abandon its principles and join in the rule breaking? How is the public interest best served?</p>
<p>The US media will now have to confront this question. It is timely for the media in other Western countries to face up to it as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The media as an institution in the United States is in a deplorable condition, and President-elect Donald Trump has been the beneficiary of its failings.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667172016-11-01T01:01:53Z2016-11-01T01:01:53ZThe myth of the disappearing book<p>After years of sales growth, major publishers reported a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/03/ebook-sales-falling-for-the-first-time-finds-new-report">fall</a> in their e-book sales for the first time this year, introducing new doubts about the potential of e-books in the publishing industry. A Penguin executive even admitted recently that the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/14/penguin-boss-admits-the-company-read-too-much-into-the-ebook-hyp/">e-books hype</a> may have driven unwise investment, with the company losing too much confidence in “the power of the word on the page.” </p>
<p>Yet despite the increasing realization that digital and print can easily coexist in the market, the question of whether the e-book will “kill” the print book continues to surface. It doesn’t matter if the intention is to <a href="http://www.thecraftywriter.com/2012/09/21/the-energy-crisis-the-e-book-revolution-and-the-publishing-industry-will-print-books-survive/">predict</a> or <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2015/02/12/e-books-arent-killing-print/#4602b47a52b8">dismiss</a> this possibility; the potential disappearance of the book does not cease to stimulate our imagination.</p>
<p>Why is this idea so powerful? Why do we continue to question the encounter between e-books and print books in terms of a struggle, even if all evidence points to their peaceful coexistence? </p>
<p>The answers to these questions go beyond e-books and tell us much more about the mixture of excitement and fear we feel about innovation and change.
<a href="http://nms.sagepub.com/content/18/10/2379">In our research</a>, we discuss how the idea of one medium “killing” another has often followed the unveiling of new technologies.</p>
<h2>It’s all happened before</h2>
<p>Even before the advent of digital technologies, critics have predicted the demise of existing media. After television was invented, many claimed radio would die. But radio ended up surviving by finding new uses; people started listening in cars, during train rides and on factory floors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142692/original/image-20161021-1760-1g75dqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A family huddles around the television in the late 1950s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Family_watching_television_1958.jpg#/media/File:Family_watching_television_1958.jpg">National Archives and Records Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The myth of the disappearing book isn’t new, either. As early as 1894, <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheEndOfBooks">there was speculation</a> that the introduction of the phonograph would spell the demise of the books: They’d be replaced by what we today call audiobooks.</p>
<p>This happened again and again. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/murphy.html">Movies, radio, television</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.html">hyperlinks</a> and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3192634/Mobile-geddon-cash-cameras-smartphones-killing-day-essentials.html">smartphones</a> – all conspired to destroy print books as a source of culture and entertainment. Some claimed the end of books would result in cultural <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/gutenberg-elegies-the-fate-of-reading-in-an-electronic-age/oclc/31014790">regression and decline</a>. Others envisioned utopian <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/physical-book-dead/">digital futures</a>, overstating the advantages of e-books.</p>
<p>It is not by chance that the idea of the death of the book surfaces in moments of technological change. This narrative, in fact, perfectly conveys the mixture of hopes and fears that characterize our deepest reactions to technological change. </p>
<h2>Narratives of technological change</h2>
<p>To understand why these reactions are so common, one has to consider that we create emotional bonds with media as they become an integral part of our life. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo3618528.html">Numerous studies have shown</a> how people develop a close relationship with objects such as books, televisions and computers. Sometimes, we even humanize them, giving a name to our car or shouting at our laptop for not working properly. As a result, the emergence of a new technology – like e-readers – doesn’t just indicate economic and social change. It also causes us to adjust our relationship with something that has become an integral part of our day-to-day life.</p>
<p>As a result, we find ourselves longing for what we used to know, but no longer have. And it’s why <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-digital-technology-spawned-retros-revival-54302">entire industries develop around retro products and older technologies</a>. The spread of the printing press in 15th-century Europe, for example, made people seek out original manuscripts. The shift from silent to sound movie in the 1920s stimulated nostalgia for the older form. The same happened in the shift from analog to digital photography, from vinyls to CDs, or from black-and-white to color television. Not surprisingly, e-readers stimulated a new appreciation for the material quality of “old” books – and even for their <a href="http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/03/07/smelling-the-books">often unpleasant smell</a>.</p>
<p>The ones who still worry for the disappearance of print books may rest assured: Books have endured many technical revolutions, and are in the best position to survive this one. </p>
<p>Yet the myth of the disappearing medium will continue to provide an appealing narrative about both the transformative power of technology and our aversion to change. In fact, one of the strategies we employ in order to make sense of change is the use of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/comt.12099/abstract">narrative patterns</a> that are available and familiar, such as narratives of death and ending. Easy to remember and to spread, the story of the death of media reflects our excitement for the future, as well as our fear of losing parts of our intimate world – and finally, of ourselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>E-book sales are falling, even though many said they would “kill” print books. Computers and television were also supposed to spell the book’s demise. At one point, people even feared the phonograph.Simone Natale, Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies, Loughborough UniversityAndrea Ballatore, Lecturer, Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672742016-10-26T03:23:52Z2016-10-26T03:23:52ZIn a post-truth election, clicks trump facts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143132/original/image-20161025-4735-vr4xty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Digital media has feasted off Donald Trump's lies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation via Shutterstock</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One thing about the 2016 presidential race is undeniable: Donald Trump has lied or misled at an unprecedented level. <a href="http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/">Over 70 percent of his statements</a>, according to Politifact, are “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire false.” (Hillary Clinton is at <a href="http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/">26 percent</a>.) </p>
<p>His latest whopper – that the election is being rigged by a dishonest media and through ballot fraud – fed the news cycle for an entire week. </p>
<p>But while Trump scapegoats the media, he has served them well – at least, financially. Cable news organizations are expected to break records <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/21/media-and-politics-age-trump">with US$2.5 billion in profits this election</a> and spending on digital ads <a href="http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Political-Ad-Spending-Skyrocket-2016/1013861">will reach $1 billion for the first time</a> in a presidential campaign. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik recently reported that CNN has earned roughly $100 million more than they’d anticipated during this election cycle – largely due to Trump.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"790646205969727488"}"></div></p>
<p>With Trump’s poll numbers cratering over the past month, conservative media figures like Bill Kristol have tried to keep the top of the ticket from bringing down the GOP brand, calling Trump a “fluke” candidate and trying to shift the <a href="http://wpo.st/Gfe72">blame to the media</a> for fomenting his rise – and nauseating lies – with billions of dollars in free coverage. </p>
<p>As a media scholar who has followed <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ratings-driven-presidential-debates-are-weakening-american-democracy-50228">Trump’s “reality show” campaign and its impact on TV ratings and democracy</a>, I would say there is, indeed, plenty of reason to blame the media players who have shrugged all the way to the bank.</p>
<p>More than just accounting for his rise, the profit motive in the digital media game has made it easier than ever before to spread false or defamatory information. </p>
<h2>Poisoning the well</h2>
<p>The media have always been eager to cover Trump, a playboy business magnate whose ventures endured wild ups and downs. <a href="http://cnn.it/2aOSplV">He spent years on The Howard Stern Show</a> honing his shock jock persona, bragging about his sexual conquests and insulting public figures. On “The Apprentice,” the louder he yelled “You’re fired!,” the higher his ratings soared. Audiences seemed to be drawn to his conspicuously cocksure authoritarian persona. </p>
<p>He also understands a basic tenet of for-profit media: The only “truth” is that you can’t be boring.</p>
<p>As Trump moved into the political arena, he beguiled old and new media into covering him by saying outrageous things – truth be damned – knowing that controversial statements draw immediate coverage. </p>
<p>In the wake of controversy, there’s usually a segment on cable news shows where a candidate or surrogate gets free air time to explain what they meant, followed by someone who refutes it. Analysts or op-ed writers will then devote time to denouncing the statement with attention-grabbing headlines like “<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/02/15-hours-of-donald-trump-s-lies.html">15 Hours of Donald Trump’s Lies</a>” (after Trump spent a day making stuff up about the Khan family) or “<a href="http://nyti.ms/2cSRE8s">The Lies Trump Told</a>” (a list of his biggest fibs).</p>
<p>The problem isn’t just that these articles keep the attention focused on Trump, reinforcing his chosen topics and frames for talking about them. It’s also been well-documented that the very act of trying to explain or denounce a lie can reinforce it.</p>
<p>We know from <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-media-fuels-vaccination-myths-by-trying-to-correct-them-38084">studies of how anti-vaccination myths spread</a> that each time a telegenic spokesperson repeats a lie – even in a segment designed to correct it – it becomes more familiar to audiences. Paradoxically, because <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23547213_How_Warnings_about_False_Claims_Become_Recommendations">people tend to equate familiarization with truth</a>, the more a lie is called out for being a lie, the more difficult it becomes to parse from the truth. </p>
<p>Digital media platforms exacerbate this problem because revenue models incentivize clicks over truth. In digital capitalism <a href="http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/mobilizing-audience-commodity-digital-labour-wireless-world">attention has been monetized</a>. The more outrageous the statement, the more clicks it generates. </p>
<p>These days, even legacy media – newspapers like The New York Times or The Washington Post – follow the data buzz and cover whatever is trending. <a href="http://nyti.ms/1Q07Gea">Trump has mastered using Twitter</a>, a medium that suits his blunt invective rhetoric, to kickstart the misinformation feedback loop. He knows his colorful and misleading statements get retweeted by friends and foes alike – that writers and performers will react with ardent confirmation, denunciation or dramatic satire.</p>
<h2>The dawn of the Twitter bots</h2>
<p>A team led by Oxford University professor Philip Howard has also been able to show that there are Twitter bots – fake accounts programmed to behave like impassioned supporters – promoting each presidential candidate during this cycle. But <a href="http://wpo.st/-Ll72">Trump’s army vastly outnumbers Clinton’s</a>, with millions of tweets and retweets that have been programmed to include hashtags like #CrookedHillary, memes, photographs and links to hyperpartisan Facebook “news” pages like Eagle Rising. </p>
<p>With <a href="http://pewrsr.ch/249haJM">62 percent</a> of Americans getting their news from social media and <a href="http://pewrsr.ch/249haJM">44 million reading it on Facebook pages</a>, these bots can easily promulgate lies and half-truths, especially when users aren’t able to recognize the source.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Buzzfeed recently <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-analysis?utm_term=.eaBQm9ENv">wrote a lengthy report</a> about how content producers of hyperpartisan Facebook pages are growing their audiences by eschewing factual reporting and using false or misleading information that simply tells people what they want to hear. </p>
<p>After fact checking over 1,000 posts from pages categorized as “right-wing” or “left-wing,” they found that 38 percent of the content on Trump-friendly pages like Freedom Daily – with 1.3 million fans – were either half-true or false. These phony stories, especially outrageous ones like the fable of Clinton’s “body double,” generate massive digital traffic that adds directly to Facebook’s bottom line. These pages are not flukes. Rather, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/magazine/inside-facebooks-totally-insane-unintentionally-gigantic-hyperpartisan-political-media-machine.html">as media writer John Herrman wrote in The New York Times Magazine</a>, they are “the purest expression of Facebook’s design and of the incentives coded into its algorithm.” </p>
<h2>Toward a new media ethic</h2>
<p>A 2009 study found that <a href="https://studysites.sagepub.com/mcquail6/Online%20readings/19a%20Curran%20et%20al.pdf">commercialized media</a> lower the political knowledge of viewers. The price we pay for a profit-driven media marketplace, it seems, is national ignorance. </p>
<p>Convenient untruths benefit their producers, no matter which side consumes or leverages them for fundraising. Everyone in the political information industry profits from the resulting suspicion, cynicism and outrage.</p>
<p>If Trump loses, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/10/24/499229641/trump-tv-launches-its-pilot-with-pitch-to-his-base">the possibility of Trump TV</a> looms; undoubtedly, it will serve the for-profit media a steady stream of ready-made rage. But we need to think hard about how to resist this <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-trumpification-of-the-us-media-why-chasing-news-values-distorts-politics-56033">“Trumpification” of the media</a>.</p>
<p>There’s no easy answer. It would probably involve supporting structural reforms like <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/21/media-and-politics-age-trump">nonprofit or public news alternatives</a>. It would include ending the absurd practice of giving paid perjurers representing campaigns an opportunity to lie in the name of journalistic “fairness” – as if statements from the “spinroom” are ever uttered in good faith. </p>
<p>We need a new media ethic that ignores clickbait calumny, not one that gives bad faith actors a chance to repeat it. Journalists must resist reacting like Twitter bots. Rather than predictably repeating mendacious falsehoods that increase our ignorance, they should act as stewards of the public interest, choosing news content and media frames that add to our collective understanding. </p>
<p>It will demand denying serial liars like Trump the attention they so desperately need, leaving more air and space for truth to be heard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Jordan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lies, Twitter bots and sensation reign in the era of for-profit digital media.Matthew Jordan, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667252016-10-25T02:33:05Z2016-10-25T02:33:05ZWhy sports fans need villains<p>As the new NBA season begins, the Golden State Warriors find themselves in an unfamiliar role: villain. </p>
<p>After the Warriors drafted Stephen Curry from unheralded Davidson College in 2009, fans across the country became enamored with his exciting style of play. Through the years, the team added players to complement Curry’s scoring prowess – Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala. In 2015, they won the NBA championship, ending the franchise’s 40-year championship drought. Last year, they broke the Chicago Bulls’ record for most regular season wins.</p>
<p>But when superstar Kevin Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder to sign with the Warriors during this past summer – turning an already dominant team into a “superteam” – the backlash was swift: “The Warriors Went From Heroes to Villains in Record Time,” <a href="https://theringer.com/golden-state-warriors-villains-nba-finals-8868bfa6274b#.sy1e268n5">The Ringer declared</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, Durant, previously a well-liked player, <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17118187/nba-how-kevin-durant-adjusting-role-nba-newest-villain">had become a “reviled villain.”</a> </p>
<p>“Watch the exponential increase in venom thrown [the Warriors’] way this year,” sportswriter Marcus Thompson II <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/04/thompson-kevin-durant-makes-warriors-most-hated-team-in-league/">wrote in The San Jose Mercury News</a>. “Durant jerseys are already ablaze in Oklahoma City.”</p>
<p>I’ve been studying sports marketing and the psychology of sports fans for several years. Fans and executives often lament the formation of “superteams,” saying it’s bad for competitive balance and bad for business. But while these teams quickly become loathed, psychology research has shown that they also make us more likely to watch – and bask in the joy of seeing them fail.</p>
<h2>From darling to despised</h2>
<p>Among sports fans, how does a well-liked team become a villain? Why can the turn be so sudden, the vitriol so sharp?</p>
<p>Scholars David Tyler and Joe Cobbs studied dozens different rivalries to identify the factors that contribute to especially intense and emotional <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2530260">rivalries</a>. They found that rivalries intensify when one team becomes dominant, but also when it’s thought to have an unfair advantage. </p>
<p>We’ve seen it in the vitriol heaped on the New England Patriots, a team that has made the playoffs in 13 of the past 15 seasons but has also been accused of bending the rules in the Spygate and Deflategate scandals. And we saw it when LeBron James went to Miami in 2010 to create a “superteam” with Dewayne Wade and Chris Bosh.</p>
<p>In the case of the Warriors, neither Durant nor the front office broke any rules. However, it’s no surprise that a superstar joining a rival team filled with other superstars – including the reigning MVP – might be seen as an unfair advantage. </p>
<p>The rich have become richer, while critics have lambasted Durant as cravenly jumping on a championship bandwagon.</p>
<h2>The appeal of a villain</h2>
<p>If a team becomes stacked with talent and loathed, you would think this would make fans of other teams less likely to tune in: It becomes that much more unlikely that their own favorite teams will win the championship. In fact, the Warriors are <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/warriors-rare-odds-favorites-win-nba-title/story?id=42891374">the preseason odds-on favorite to win the NBA championship</a>, meaning they have a better than 50 percent chance of winning. (The last time this happened was during the reign of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the mid-1990s.)</p>
<p>After Durant joined the Warriors, NBA Commissioner <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/2016/7/12/12168934/adam-silver-warriors-kevin-durant-superteams-bad-for-nba">Adam Silver</a> said he wasn’t fond of “superteams” because they hurt the league’s competitive balance, <a href="http://www.chiefs.com/news/article-2/Goodell-Hunt-Stress-Importance-of-Maintaining-League-Parity/eebe6aca-6e49-4f96-a903-bcf8022fc480">something league executives across professional sports usually strive for</a>. The thinking is that more fans will be interested if they think their favorite team has a chance to win it all.</p>
<p>However, Dallas Mavericks owner <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17065541/dallas-mavericks-owner-mark-cuban-says-golden-state-warriors-becoming-villains-fans-good-nba-business">Mark Cuban</a> was quick to point out that a team in the cross-hairs will generate higher interest and ratings. According to Cuban, fans who now loathe the Warriors will follow them closely, rooting for them to lose.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRyQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=dolf+zillmann+affective+disposition+theory&source=bl&ots=-0zRtR868k&sig=hx087zs3lWCRrs7vKDGmN96MR2Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXuLnN2N_PAhVJ62MKHb_9Dks4ChDoAQg6MAc#v=onepage&q=dolf%20zillmann%20affective%20disposition%20theory&f=false">Affective Disposition Theory</a> supports Cuban’s position. Originally introduced by entertainment psychology expert Dolf Zillmann, it’s based on the idea that people’s emotional engagement to a competition becomes stronger when they take a side. In entertainment and sports (and even politics), viewers determine who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are – and <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/tv-so-good-it-hurts-the-psychology-of-watching-breaking-bad/">root accordingly</a>. </p>
<p>While this can mean turning on the TV to root for the good guy, it can also mean tuning in to root <em>against</em> a bad guy. </p>
<p>Many movies use a simple formula that capitalizes on this very idea: A liked protagonist, a disliked villain, a struggle between the two and, eventually, a triumphant victory by the hero over the villain. Of course, it is much easier to have the good guy beat the villain in a movie than in a sporting event. But this can also increase the excitement over the villain’s loss in sports: Viewers know it hasn’t been scripted in advance.</p>
<p>From the 1990s and early 2000s, baseball’s New York Yankees were a “superteam”; like the Warriors, many fans thought of them as villains. Prior to the 2001 American League Championship Series (ALCS) between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners, ESPN conducted a <a href="https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/44302/BeeColleenBusinessRivalriesSponsorAffiliation.pdf?sequence=1">poll</a> on its website asking fans, “Which statement best describes your rooting interest in ALCS?” The statement that received the highest percentage of votes (32.5 percent) was “hate the Yankees.” An additional 14.1 percent indicated they “root against (but secretly admire) the Yankees.” </p>
<p>Of the 31,544 people that voted, almost half stated they were going to follow the series because of their strong dislike for the Yankees.</p>
<p>That year, the Yankees would go on to lose the World Series, and the viewership for Game 7 remains the highest for a World Series-clinching game since 1991. In fact, the Yankees have played in seven World Series over the past 20 years. All of them are in the top 10 for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_television_ratings">most-watched World Series</a> during this time span. Three are in the top five.</p>
<h2>Loving to hate</h2>
<p>By evoking strong emotions, thinking of teams as heroes and villains makes us more likely to tune in. They also affect our enjoyment of the viewing experience: While we’re glad when good things happen to the teams we like, we also feel happy when bad things happen to teams and players we dislike.</p>
<p>There’s a German word, Schadenfreude – pleasure at the misfortune of others – for this emotion.</p>
<p>A few years ago I conducted a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J396v29n01_03">study</a> with my colleague Jeff Langenderfer to investigate the appeal of villains in reality TV. We followed comments posted on the CBS chat rooms one hour before and after each show for an entire season of CBS’s hit show “Survivor.”</p>
<p>Consistent with the Affective Disposition Theory, viewers’ interest in the show was partly driven by their desire to follow characters they disliked. “I got to admit I love to hate the bad ones; [they] make it interesting,” one viewer wrote.</p>
<p>As expected, viewers wanted good things to happen to the characters they liked and bad things to happen to the ones they disliked. Not surprisingly, they celebrated or expressed frustration accordingly.</p>
<p>Sports, given the emotional bonds fans form with their favorite teams, provide a context in which these tendencies are especially likely to emerge. In 1996, NFL owner Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, where they became the Ravens – something Cleveland fans viewed as the ultimate betrayal. After Modell passed away in 2012, I conducted an <a href="http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/sdut-csusm-study-examines-when-fans-cross-the-line-2015feb01-story.html">analysis</a> with coauthors Joanna Melancon and Tarah Sreboth of comments posted by fans on the ESPN story reporting his death. About 40 percent of the comments expressed some form of schadenfreude. Several Cleveland fans openly celebrated his death with comments like “best day ever” and “glad you’re dead.” </p>
<p>Bottom line: In order to enjoy the victory by the hero, there needs to be a villain; for all the hate we heap on “superteams,” they increase the enjoyment of the viewing experience. As for the Warriors, they’ve probably already started to brace themselves for boos and taunts as they tour the country, with opposing fans rooting especially hard for them to stumble along the way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vassilis Dalakas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many decry ‘superteams’ like the NBA’s Golden State Warriors as bad for the sport. But psychology research shows that they also make us more likely to watch – and bask in the joy of seeing them fail.Vassilis Dalakas, Professor of Marketing, California State University San MarcosLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647892016-09-07T02:43:33Z2016-09-07T02:43:33ZHow ‘Star Trek’ almost failed to launch<p>On Sept. 8, 1966, TV viewers were transfixed by the appearance on screen of a green-hued, pointy-eared alien called Spock. But beneath the makeup, actor Leonard Nimoy fretted that this would be the end of his promising career. </p>
<p>“How can I play a character without emotion?” he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=How%20do%20I%20play%20a%20character%20with%20no%20emotion%3F&f=false">asked</a> his boss, Gene Roddenberry. “I’m going to be on one note throughout the entire series.” </p>
<p>Nimoy thought he looked silly wearing the prosthetics that turned him into a Vulcan, at one point issuing an <a href="http://startrekdom.blogspot.com/2007/05/leonard-nimoys-lovehate-relationship.html">ultimatum</a>: “It’s me or the ears.” </p>
<p>Nimoy’s misgivings were just one of many problems the writers, producers and cast faced during “Star Trek”‘s troubled journey to the screen. Culled from <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X2cBAAAACAAJ&dq=Inside+Star+Trek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMzMm0kvTOAhVEOSYKHTpiA3sQ6AEIHjAA">their</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+fifty-year+mission&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD7Yy3zvXOAhXHQiYKHSLJDNsQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=The%20fifty-year%20mission&f=false">recollections</a>, this is the story of how “Star Trek”’s mission to explore strange new worlds was almost over before it began. </p>
<h2>Seeds of inspiration</h2>
<p>The ingredients of “Star Trek” had been slow-cooking in creator Gene Roddenberry’s brain for years. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=snippet&q=blimp&f=false">At first he wanted to write a show about a 19th-century blimp</a> that journeyed from place to place, making contact with distant peoples. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry in the early 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/MONY_Gene_Roddenberry.JPG">Mutual of New York (MONY)/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Deciding instead to set the show in the future, Roddenberry drew upon his youthful immersion in science fiction magazines like <a href="http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=astounding">Astounding Stories</a>. Also important was his experience as a World War II bomber pilot, which caused him to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jJlzRQQrIj4C&dq=Gene+Roddenberry+Yvonne+Fern&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=wasn%27t+just+an+aberration+of+man%27s+nature">ruminate</a> on human nature: Would we ever outgrow our obsession with violence? And from C.S. Forester’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/nls/bibliographies/minibibs/horatio.html">Horatio Hornblower novels</a>, Roddenberry borrowed the idea of a courageous captain burdened by the duties of command.</p>
<p>With tiny Desilu Studios interested in making the show, Roddenberry pitched “Star Trek” to the networks. CBS passed after Roddenberry botched the pitch. But NBC bit and ordered a pilot episode, which was eventually titled “The Cage.”</p>
<h2>NBC responds to the pilot</h2>
<p>Watching “The Cage” now is a disorientating experience. In the captain’s chair is a sullen man called Pike, played by star Jeff Hunter. There is no sign of future series regulars McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, Checkov. Spock is there, but not quite the inscrutable Spock we would come to know. He shouts and, more than once, breaks into a wide grin. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SYPpgYwE7aY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The opening to ‘The Cage,’ ‘Star Trek’‘s first pilot episode.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The role of chilly logician and second in command is instead taken by “Number One,” a character played by actress Majel Barrett. </p>
<p>“Number One” wouldn’t make it past this trial run. In tests, some men and a surprisingly large number of women <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=the%20women%20hated%20her&f=false">objected to her stridency</a>, which was out of touch with the gender norms of the time. NBC doubted that Barrett could carry such a prominent role (and even thought Roddenberry had cast her because she was his mistress). </p>
<p>“The Cage” – a complicated story about alien mind-control – was an ambitious pilot. When Roddenberry presented it to NBC, the programming executives were blown away. But the sales and marketing department wasn’t convinced. Not enough action, <a href="https://www.quora.com/I-just-started-Star-Trek-Why-does-it-switch-between-Pike-in-the-first-episode-and-Kirk-in-the-subsequent-episodes">they thought</a>. It would be hard to promote. Pass. </p>
<p>“Star Trek,” it seemed, was dead. </p>
<h2>Striking gold with Shatner</h2>
<p>Roddenberry pleaded with NBC for another chance. He assured them he could make it action-driven, that it didn’t need to be high concept. A television miracle happened when NBC commissioned that rarest of things: a second pilot.</p>
<p>Roddenberry wanted Jeff Hunter to return as Captain Pike, and arranged to screen “The Cage” for him, reserving Desilu’s projection room for March 25, 1965. But Hunter was a no-show, sending his wife in his stead. “This is not the kind of show Jeff wants to do,” <a href="http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Christopher_Pike">she told Roddenberry</a>. “Jeff Hunter is a movie star.” Pike relinquished command. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Shatner as Captain Kirk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/William_Shatner_Star_Trek.JPG">NBC Television/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ebullient Canadian actor William Shatner was hired to play the ship’s captain, now named James R. (later James T.) Kirk. For Leonard Nimoy, the casting of Shatner, a stage actor accustomed to playing scenes big and loud, was the key to unlocking Spock.</p>
<p>“Jeff [Hunter] was playing Captain Pike as a very thoughtful, kind of worried, kind of angst-ridden nice guy,” Nimoy later <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iw0TAgAACAAJ&dq=Star+Trek+Memories,+Shatner&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2rLW8lPTOAhUM4yYKHTXXDFoQ6AEIJzAA">told</a> Shatner, in an interview for Shatner’s book “Star Trek Memories.” “Pike didn’t have the clarity or precision of character against which you could measure yourself.” </p>
<p>Shatner’s clear-cut performance carved out space for Nimoy to shape his saturnine Spock. “For lack of a better metaphor, on a bright sunny day, the shadows get very clear.”</p>
<p>The second pilot, bolstered by the Shatner/Nimoy tandem, was a winner. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was a rollicking story about crew members irradiated in deep space and acquiring godlike powers. NBC liked it and commissioned a full season of “Star Trek.”</p>
<h2>Righting the ship after a stormy start</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X2cBAAAACAAJ&dq=Inside+Star+Trek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMzMm0kvTOAhVEOSYKHTpiA3sQ6AEIHjAA">Triumph quickly turned to panic</a> for Roddenberry and for Desilu studios. Roddenberry needed scripts for the series – fast. He solicited stories from veteran TV writers, from sci-fi magazine and novel authors, and even from his office staff. His secretary Dorothy Fontana went on to become perhaps the most celebrated and prolific writer for the show. </p>
<p>But script problems would dog the young series. Veteran TV writers, unused to sci-fi, struggled to work within the universe Roddenberry had created. Sci-fi luminaries had boundless imaginations but little grasp of the practicalities of writing for television. Their scripts often called for casting and staging that would consume the budget for a feature film, let alone a fledgling TV series.</p>
<p>Roddenberry also wasn’t the best at managing the fragile egos of his writers. He took it upon himself to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=Roddenberry%20re-wrote&f=false">rewrite every script that made it on-screen</a>, and his pages were often slow to arrive on set. Scripting was a constant source of tension and delay. </p>
<p>For Desilu, the elation of getting “Star Trek” picked up <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X2cBAAAACAAJ&dq=Inside+Star+Trek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMzMm0kvTOAhVEOSYKHTpiA3sQ6AEIHjAA">was dampened by the financial reality of producing the show</a>. Network policy was to pay a set amount for each episode, calculated at something like 80 percent of the cost of production. For a small outfit like Desilu, deficit-financing both “Star Trek” and their other new show, “Mission Impossible,” required some accounting wizardry. Both were budgeted at US$200,000 per episode, with NBC kicking in $160,000. Any over-budget costs were born by the studio alone.</p>
<p>Tiny Desilu kept its head above water into the second season of “Star Trek” before finally drowning in debt. Studio owner and “I Love Lucy” star Lucille Ball was forced to sell to Paramount. Had she been able to hold on a few months more, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=Desilu%20money&f=false">she would have seen “Star Trek” picked up in 60 countries</a>. Had she retained the rights long-term, Desilu would have benefited financially from endless reruns of the show’s 79 episodes. Network-friendly deals also ensured it would be many years before the cast would gain financial security from their iconic roles.</p>
<p>With the premiere date rapidly approaching, NBC chose an episode titled “The Man Trap” to be the first to air. It is, in truth, a run-of-the-mill “Star Trek” episode. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+fifty+year+mission&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJsJ6Xs_vOAhVEFh4KHV9_AdsQ6AEILTAB#v=snippet&q=monster&f=false">The network liked that it featured a creature</a> – a shape-shifting, salt-guzzling monster – with which the show’s heroes could do battle. </p>
<p>Although NBC’s marketing team had not initially seen the potential of “Star Trek,” by the time “The Man Trap” aired, they were able to trumpet the show in a glossy, multipage <a href="https://theinvisibleagent.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/star-trek-nbc-sales-pilot-sell-sheet-1966/">promotional brochure</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“As the Apollo moon shot moves steadily from the drawing board to the launching pad, STAR TREK takes TV viewers beyond our time and solar system to the unexplored interstellar deeps … the STAR TREK storylines will stimulate the imagination without bypassing the intellect. While speculating in a fascinating way about the future, the series also will have much to say that is meaningful to us today.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A half-century later, we are on the cusp of a <a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/09/03/star-trek-discovery-secrets-revealed-at-missions-nyc/">new CBS series</a> set in the universe Roddenberry created. (CBS acquired the rights to “Star Trek” some years ago following a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lhmw637JRgUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA209#v=onepage&q&f=false">complicated series of corporate maneuverings</a>.) Titled “Star Trek: Discovery” and scheduled for release in January 2017, the new series has no doubt had to contend with its own casting controversies, script problems and budget constraints. </p>
<p>The writers of the new show certainly know enough about Trek’s turbulent beginnings to temper expectations: “If you go in with open minds and open hearts, you may be rewarded,” <a href="http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/star-trek-discovery-writer-lower-expectations">they told a crowd</a> eager for news at the Star Trek: Mission New York convention held over Labor Day weekend. “Whereas if you go with a set of impossible-to-realize expectations, which even you cannot specifically define, then we’re bound to fail.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Benedict Dyson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With a pilot that was deemed too complex and cerebral, ‘Star Trek’ looked dead in the water. Fifty years later, we look back at the show’s rocky beginnings.Stephen Benedict Dyson, Professor of Political Science, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/634332016-08-04T01:27:40Z2016-08-04T01:27:40ZWhat the favorite TV shows of Trump supporters can tell us about his appeal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132995/original/image-20160803-12186-1xubvag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-222952348/stock-photo-police-car-on-the-street-at-night.html?src=PkW-_7036Q8Xq7v2DNQxNg-1-4">'Siren' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.tivoresearch.com/blog/clinton-trump-tv/">According to new data</a>, supporters of Donald Trump prefer to get their news from television and enjoy watching crime dramas. </p>
<p>These findings might sound insignificant. But they actually offer insight into Trump’s rise. As a presidential candidate, he’s claimed that illegal immigrants are flooding the country with “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974#ixzz4GIY96MvN">no regard for the impact on public safety</a>,” while warning that if things don’t change, “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/transcript-donald-trump-national-security-speech-224273">we’re not going to have a country anymore – there will be nothing left</a>.”</p>
<p>This rhetoric supplements our current media environment, which, as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=a0pS07ff92oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cultivation+theory&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjrZrG-6XOAhVD4SYKHT7pAeEQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=Cultivation%20theory&f=false">studies have shown</a>, cultivates a false perception of the world as a mean, violent place. And it’s laid the groundwork for many of Trump’s most successful appeals to fear.</p>
<h2>Mean world syndrome</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, communication professor <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/05/the-man-who-counts-the-killings/376850/">George Gerbner</a> began studying the effects of violence on television. One of his most striking discoveries was that watching significant amounts of violent television changed viewers’ outlook on the world. Specifically, those who watched a lot of violent shows on TV began to see the world as a dangerous place; they were more likely to overestimate the real-world occurrence of <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ139260">crime and violence</a>. </p>
<p>Gerbner dubbed this outcome “mean world syndrome,” because people who consumed a lot of violent television came to think of the world as a mean and scary place. In a 1997 profile of Gerbner, The Atlantic journalist Scott Stossel <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/05/the-man-who-counts-the-killings/376850/">summarized Gerber’s conclusions</a>: that, in the end, “we become fearful and anxious – and more willing to depend on authorities, strong measures, gated communities, and other proto-police-state accouterments.” </p>
<p>To be clear, <a href="http://christopherjferguson.com/Paradigm%20Change.pdf">watching violence on television</a> doesn’t cause violence, much like <a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-on-tv-less-impact-on-teens-than-you-might-think-61957">watching sexual activity</a> doesn’t cause people to have sex. What it does do is make us more afraid and more willing to look for authoritarian figures to make us feel secure. </p>
<h2>The TV viewing habits of a Trump supporter</h2>
<p>Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.tivoresearch.com/blog/clinton-trump-tv/">Tivo</a> provided data for the top five shows that supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton watched more than the average American. </p>
<p>Of the shows watched by Trump supporters, all five focused on crime as a central plot point – <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3187578/">“The Mysteries of Laura,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364845/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“NCIS,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560084/?ref_=nv_sr_3">“NCIS: New Orleans,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4422836/?ref_=nv_sr_1">“Limitless”</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4465472/?ref_=nv_sr_1">“Rosewood.”</a> In contrast, only one of the shows watched by Clinton supporters was focused on crime (“The Mysteries of Laura”). The others were <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4094300/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442462/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“The Good Wife,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3501074/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“Madame Secretary”</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4363588/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“Telenovela.”</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3300879/Donald-Trump-supporters-likely-taken-clickbait-backers-Bernie-Sanders-likely-watch-TV.html">Demographic data on TV viewership</a> also show that Trump supporters prefer to get their news from TV and watch more TV news on average than the general public. Roughly 60 percent of Trump supporters prefer to receive their news from television instead of reading it online or in print. By comparison, 55 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Bernie Sanders supporters expressed a preference for reading about political candidates either online or in the newspaper. </p>
<p>Studies have shown how television news relies on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media">fear-based appeals</a> to both capture and maintain viewers’ attention. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/107769900408100208">Research has also found</a> that watching television news not only leads to a greater fear of crime, but also increases audience members’ support for for capital punishment and handgun ownership. </p>
<h2>A nation slipping into chaos?</h2>
<p>Based on Donald Trump’s rhetoric, it should come as no surprise that people who find themselves drawn to the Republican candidate also like crime dramas. </p>
<p>Trump’s strong stance on crime and gun rights resonates highly with this audience. He’s argued that Hillary Clinton would take away Americans’ right to own guns and has gone so far as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/politics/donald-trump-gun-positions-nra-orlando/">to contend that</a> “The Second Amendment is on the ballot in November.” Trump also supports the movement for a <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/second-amendment-rights">national right to carry</a> a concealed weapon – a position that’s likely to resonate with people who envision a world in which they need a handgun to be safe.</p>
<p>In addition, Trump has masterfully appealed to those susceptible to “mean world syndrome.” During his <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974#ixzz4GDQdQGKZ">address at the RNC</a>, he relied heavily on the rhetoric of fear, contending that the world is slipping into chaos. He depicted a nation in crisis, stating, “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life.” </p>
<p>Even though he argues that the United States is overrun with violent crime and disorder, there’s ample evidence to the contrary. <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/manafort-fbi-crime-statistics-cant-be-trusted.html">Reports from the FBI</a> indicate violent crime has actually been <a href="http://www.statista.com/graphic/1/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990.jpg">on a steady decline over the last two decades.</a></p>
<p>But this type of rhetoric is nothing new for Trump, who began his campaign by declaring that <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/06/25/exp-presidential-candidate-donald-trump-immigration-intv-erin.cnn">Mexico</a> was sending rapists and murderers pouring over America’s borders. Based on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/">factual data</a>, these claims are also false. However, as it’s been noted, Trump relies on rhetorical appeals to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rhetorical-brilliance-of-trump-the-demagogue-51984">fear and populism</a>. Newt Gingrich defended Trump’s claims about violent crime in America <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I">by stating,</a> “the average American, I will bet you this morning, does not think crime is down, does not think they are safer.” </p>
<p>Crime shows on television and news broadcasts have helped cultivate the very feelings that Gingrich referred to. And unless they’re alleviated, those feelings could carry Trump all the way to the White House.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Duncan is a registered Independent. </span></em></p>Could their affinity for a certain type of television drama help explain why they’re drawn to his rhetoric?Aaron Duncan, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-LincolnLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.