Explaining Effects of Sensationalism on Liking of Television News Stories

Vettehen, Paul Hendriks; Nuijten, Koos; Peeters, Allerd

doi:10.1177/0093650208315960

Cited by 80 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…More than hard news, characteristics particular for soft news elicit emotional arousal (e.g., involvement) that results in a better appreciation of news items (Hendriks Vettehen, Nuijten, & Peeters, 2008) and thereby can provide a break-away from one's daily concerns (Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2010). Containing more arousing features and dramatic elements than hard news, soft news probably evokes stronger hedonic viewing experiences than hard news.…”

Section: Hard News Versus Soft News and Mental Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

News Consumption and Its Unpleasant Side Effect

Boukes

Vliegenthart

2017

Journal of Media Psychology

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News consumption and its unpleasant side effectBoukes, M.; Vliegenthart, R. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Abstract Following the news is generally understood as crucial for democracy as it allows citizens to politically participate in an informed manner; yet, one may wonder about the unintended side effects it has for the mental well-being of citizens. With news focusing on the negative and worrisome events in the world, framing that evokes a sense of powerlessness, and lack of entertainment value, this study hypothesizes that news consumption decreases mental well-being via negative hedonic experiences; thereby, we differentiate between hard and soft news. Using a panel survey in combination with latent growth curve modeling (n = 2767), we demonstrate that the consumption of hard news television programs has a negative effect on the overtime development of mental well-being. Soft news consumption, by contrast, has a marginally positive impact on the trend in well-being. This can be explained by the differential topic focus, framing and style of soft news vis-a-vis hard news. Investigating the effects of news consumption on mental well-being provides insight into the impact news exposure has on variables other than the political ones, which definitively are not less societally relevant.Keywords: news consumption; mental well-being; hedonic experiences; negativity; hard versus soft news.1 Please refer to this paper as follows: Boukes, M. & Vliegenthart, R. (2017). News consumption and its unpleasant side effect: Studying the effect of hard and soft news exposure on mental well-being over time. Italy; the Amsterdam police fighting drugs-related crime; an 11 year-old boy who stabbed two other boys in Landgraaf; the war in Ukraine; more children being hospitalized for alcohol abuse; Ebola in Liberia; financial problems of the European Union regarding Greece; the development of artificial skin for people with health problems. Except for the last, a long list of stories that probably not leave the viewer with feelings of joy and hope (i.e., hedonic experiences) but may rather evoke anger and fear.Following the news, nevertheless, is generally understood to be desirable behavior as it would be crucial for the functioning of democracy (Althaus, 2012). ...

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Section: Hard News Versus Soft News and Mental Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

News Consumption and Its Unpleasant Side Effect

Boukes

Vliegenthart

2017

Journal of Media Psychology

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“…Sensationalist news is generally considered negatively in the journalism literature (see e.g. Wang and Cohen, 2009), as content which "triggers emotion for the reader (Vettehen et al, 2008) and treats an issue in a predominantly tabloid-like way" (Kilgo et al, 2016). Although traditionally associated with certain topics e.g.…”

Section: Sensationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although traditionally associated with certain topics e.g. sex, scandal, crime and disaster (Grabe et al, 2001;Vettehen et al, 2008), recent work suggests that it is now just as likely with political stories (Kilgo et al, 2016). Examples (13) Molek-Kozakowska (2013) views sensationalism as a discourse strategy used to repackage information in a more exciting, extraordinary or interesting way, via the presence of several discourse illocutions (e.g.…”

Section: Sensationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incongruent Headlines: Yet Another Way to Mislead Your Readers

Chesney¹,

Liakata²,

Poesio³

et al. 2017

Proceedings of the 2017 EMNLP Workshop: Natural Language Processing Meets Journalism

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This paper discusses the problem of incongruent headlines: those which do not accurately represent the information contained in the article with which they occur. We emphasise that this phenomenon should be considered separately from recognised problematic headline types such as clickbait and sensationalism, arguing that existing natural language processing (NLP) methods applied to these related concepts are not appropriate for the automatic detection of headline incongruence, as an analysis beyond stylistic traits is necessary. We therefore suggest a number of alternative methodologies that may be appropriate to the task at hand as a foundation for future work in this area. In addition, we provide an analysis of existing data sets which are related to this work, and motivate the need for a novel data set in this domain.

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“…The eects of sensational contents on viewers have been explained using the psychological mechanism of emotional arousal (Hendrik Vettehen, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The complexity of this relationship has not been taken into consideration in this eld of research. Satisfaction (liking) has been used as a proxy for consumption (exposure) when examining the eect of dierent levels of arousal in the news (Hendrik Vettehen et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attracted but Unsatisfied: The Effects of Arousing Content on Television Consumption Choices

2011

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This paper investigates experimentally the eects of arousing content on viewing choices and satisfaction in television consumption. We test the hypothesis that the portrayal of arousing content combines high attraction and low satisfaction and is thus responsible for suboptimal choices. In our experiment, subjects can choose among three programs during a viewing session. In the experimental condition, one of the three programs portrays a violent verbal conict, whereas in the control condition the same program portrays a calm debate. A post-experimental questionnaire is used to assess subjects' satisfaction with the programs and the overall viewing experience. The results support the hypothesis: the presence of arousing content causes subjects to watch more of a given program, although they experience lower content-specic and overall satisfaction. Arousing contents also significantly increase the discrepancy between actual and desired viewing. JEL: D63, C78, C91

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Explaining Effects of Sensationalism on Liking of Television News Stories

Cited by 80 publications

References 38 publications

News Consumption and Its Unpleasant Side Effect

News Consumption and Its Unpleasant Side Effect

Incongruent Headlines: Yet Another Way to Mislead Your Readers

Attracted but Unsatisfied: The Effects of Arousing Content on Television Consumption Choices

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