Network TV as the Bad News Bearer

Stone, Gerald; Grusin, Elinor Kelley

doi:10.1177/107769908406100306

Cited by 32 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…(1) A female victim describes what it is like to lose her fiance in a restaurant shooting perpetrated by her ex-boyfriend. (2) A female postal employee describes how the murder of eight coworkers traumatized her so badly that she sometimes doesn't know how she can "go on" (living).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Effects of Victim Exemplification in Television News on Viewer Perception of Social Issues

Aust

Zillmann

1996

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

137

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Two broadcast news stories were manipulated to show victimization (food poisoning, handgun violence) in one of three versions: without victim exemplification, with exemplification by unemotional victims, and with exemplification by highly emotional victims. Male and female respondents, whose empathic sensitivity had been predetermined, recorded their own perceptions of each issue addressed: its severity as a national problem, the likelihood of it becoming a local problem, and the likelihood that they themselves might be placed at risk. They also indicated their reaction to each news story. Emotional victim exemplification fostered perceptions of greater problem severity than unemotional and no victim exemplification. Additionally, emotional victim exemplification, compared with no exemplification, fostered perceptions of increased victimization risk to self, whereas unemotional victim exemplification failed to do so. Empathic sensitivity did not interact with exemplar emotionality, but produced a main effect. Highly empathic persons perceived the severity of danger and risk to themselves as greater than did less empathic persons. Respondent gender similarly produced a main effect without interacting with exemplar emotionality. Female respondents assessed all dangers and risks as higher than did their male counterparts. Finally, exposure to emotional exemplification, but not unemotional exemplification, fostered reports of greater distress reactions than did exposure to the news stories without exemplification. Women reported greater distress than did men, and highly empathic persons reported greater distress than did less empathic persons.The social order is disrupted by acts of individuals and acts of nature in the form of crimes against persons and property, abuse of political and economic power, disasters caused by nature with or without the aid of human agents, and the ravages of war, to name a few. Television newscasts, among other news media, consistently monitor the environment for such disruptions in the social order. As a result, television newscasts contain predominantly bad news at both the national' and local levels?Unpleasant as it might seem to some viewers, legitimate reasons exist for this consistent inclusion of negative news on television.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The effect pattern concerning the involvement of repeated measures was the same for problem proximity. The story difference was associated withF (1,275) Note: Perceptions were ascertained after exposure to news reports about food poisoning and handgun violence. Ratings range from 0 to 10.…”

Section: Perception Effects Both Manipulated News Stories (Food Poismentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Victim Exemplification in Television News on Viewer Perception of Social Issues

Aust

Zillmann

1996

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

137

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A frequent criticism of newscasts is that they are dominated by bad news-murders, shootings, earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, drought, political corruption, and scandals (Stone & Grusin, 1984). Indeed, many content analyses have shown the incidence of bad news to exceed that of good news by a considerable margin (Haskins, Miller, & Quarles, 1984;Rotberg & Weiss, 1996).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Arousing Visuals and Redundancy on Cognitive Assessment of Television News

Zhou¹

2005

Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…A negative story was defined as the opposite. Stone and Grusin (1984) used similar definitions and reported intercoder reliability at 89%. More recently, Harcup and O'Neill (2001) defined good news as "stories with particularly positive overtones such as rescues and cures" and bad news as "stories with particularly negative overtones, such as conflict or tragedy" (p. 279).…”

Section: What Is Good News?mentioning

confidence: 99%

What Makes “Good” News Newsworthy?

McIntyre

2016

Communication Research Reports

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Network TV as the Bad News Bearer

Cited by 32 publications

References 0 publications

Effects of Victim Exemplification in Television News on Viewer Perception of Social Issues

Effects of Victim Exemplification in Television News on Viewer Perception of Social Issues

Effects of Arousing Visuals and Redundancy on Cognitive Assessment of Television News

What Makes “Good” News Newsworthy?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About