Media Effect
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The Impact of Media
The media, in the form of movies, television, and computers, has had a serious impact on viewers attitudes and perceptions of the world around them. Profitability drives the media news stories and motivates them to use fear tactics as the dependable motive toward profits. From the Yellow Journalism days of William Randolph Hearsts media empire in the 19th century, to the phone hacking scandal impacting the Rupert Murdoch media empire, shock value and fear factor has been the means by which both the print and visual media has used sensationalism to sell their product.
The more frightened the public becomes, the more likely they are to watch, listen, or read. All of which increases the profit of the current media. A frightened public is a motivated public. A public that buys newspapers and tabloids, watches the news, and buys the products that were advertised on any of the media.
Writers for both newspapers and television use words to convey information what may, or may not, be part of the story, and television has the added benefit of using visuals with the words. A few words and phrases such as: deadly, possible, shocking, links, alarming details, seriously, ill prepared, potential, or “experts feel (worry or say)” are all words designed to instill fear. “Exclusive” has become the latest word to be used, indicting this story is better than any other based on the “exclusive” information.
Language that becomes symbolic or evocative of one type of story might be used in others to evoke the same feeling. In the case of the recent outbreak, the mention of Meningitis has been used to instill fear into viewers because it is fast acting and seemingly random, even though it affects very few people and most who became ill were already affected with some type of illness. Implications that a disease/storm/virus qualify is “deadly” imply that everyone is in immediate danger, when in fact few people are.
The constant barrage of visual stimuli has created a generation with an extremely short attention span. From the advertiser who tells his message in 15 seconds to the movie trailer that blasts both the visual and auditory senses with information in 60 seconds, if the impact of the stimuli does not instill some type of fear or sensationalistic response, the viewer has been lost.
Television news no longer relies on language to explain natural disasters or war – photographs and video make the impact even greater. For example, any loss in the stock market or change in the world economy is viewed by experts as “alarming”, “serious”, or “potentially disastrous.” Global conclusions drawn from an expert who may, or may not, have an accurate view of the situation.
During the past decade, the media has created an atmosphere of fear but also the shock value. It is very difficult