Sensationalism |
effects of sensationalism
The effect of Sensationalism on How News is Presented
As the name suggests, news is concerned with novel ideas, whether a current development of an old issue or something entirely different that has occurred and has some interest to the audience. It can be defined as “new information or a report about something that has happened recently” (Merriam-Webster, 2014).
· News is made to be emotional and centres on issues of conflict (Ostgaard, 1965)
· Events are personalised, sentimentalised or dramatised; heavily nationalistic or greatly simplified for maximum interest from the audience (Ostgaard, 1965).
· Sensationalism has resulted in the rapid spread of news. News corporations can barely keep up!
· So they create websites, Facebook pages, Twitter pages etc to provide their version of the news to the public.
· In this way, the news gets a facelift!
· However, as news issues grow in popularity and spread throughout social media, this affects the validity and credibility and level of graphicness of the news.
As the name suggests, news is concerned with novel ideas, whether a current development of an old issue or something entirely different that has occurred and has some interest to the audience. It can be defined as “new information or a report about something that has happened recently” (Merriam-Webster, 2014).
· News is made to be emotional and centres on issues of conflict (Ostgaard, 1965)
· Events are personalised, sentimentalised or dramatised; heavily nationalistic or greatly simplified for maximum interest from the audience (Ostgaard, 1965).
· Sensationalism has resulted in the rapid spread of news. News corporations can barely keep up!
· So they create websites, Facebook pages, Twitter pages etc to provide their version of the news to the public.
· In this way, the news gets a facelift!
· However, as news issues grow in popularity and spread throughout social media, this affects the validity and credibility and level of graphicness of the news.
The effects of sensationalism on the audience:
The effects of sensationalism on the audience will always vary and there is a limit to how much "emotional impact" an audience can take.
The degree to which we like stories drops off when they are too emotionally grasping. The challenge in creating an appealing story may be in finding a sweet spot, it should arouse their emotions but not to the point that it overwhelms the audience and they no longer wish to keep reading.
A survey done by the American Society of Newspaper Editors reports that spelling errors, bias, and sensationalism are corroding the credibility of newspapers. The survey shows:
· 78% agree with the assessment that there is bias in the news media.
· 80% believe that sensational stories get lots of news coverage because they are exciting, not because they are important.
In concluding, it is evident that sensationalism has become deeply entrenched in the media, leaving the public to pay a high price through their loss of credible sources of information.