Lupingosei
Banned
No, this is not about politics, but about reality. This has ramifications in politics and the real world, because the media ignores the real world.
For several years now Steven Pinker tries to explain people, the world has become better. And he has data to illustrate this. There is for example this video from 2007.
But although the world is getting better, the media is getting more and more negative. Ignoring the real world and creating a doom and gloom parallel world, where your whole existence may be threatened. He even tried to explain that and again has data for it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/17/steven-pinker-media-negative-news
So he concludes that people like Trump actually profit from this doom and gloom media reality which does not really exist. Maybe this will be pointed out by future generations as the biggest irony of the early 21st century, that the press has created the person which is fighting them now the most.
But again this not just about politics. This has implications on everyday life. Within the last 20 years the radius children move around their home to play has been reduced from 2 kilometers to less than 200 meters. And it is not because of computers and games or TV, but because parents are more afraid and the media actually supports them. They even created the word “free range parents” for people who still let their kids play outdoors like 20 years ago.
And the most incredible thing, the data supports the free range parents. It has never been this save to let kids run around. All the data support this, less violence, less accidents the world has become saver within the last 20 years. But we let media lie and even let them control our fears. If that is not Orwellian what else is?
For several years now Steven Pinker tries to explain people, the world has become better. And he has data to illustrate this. There is for example this video from 2007.
But although the world is getting better, the media is getting more and more negative. Ignoring the real world and creating a doom and gloom parallel world, where your whole existence may be threatened. He even tried to explain that and again has data for it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/17/steven-pinker-media-negative-news
And this of course has a negative impact on peopleThe data scientist Kalev Leetaru applied a technique called sentiment mining to every article published in the New York Times between 1945 and 2005, and to an archive of translated articles and broadcasts from 130 countries between 1979 and 2010. Sentiment mining assesses the emotional tone of a text by tallying the number and contexts of words with positive and negative connotations, like good, nice, terrible, and horrific.
Putting aside the wiggles and waves that reflect the crises of the day, we see that the impression that the news has become more negative over time is real. The New York Times got steadily more morose from the early 1960s to the early 1970s, lightened up a bit (but just a bit) in the 1980s and 1990s, and then sank into a progressively worse mood in the first decade of the new century. News outlets in the rest of the world, too, became gloomier and gloomier from the late 1970s to the present day.
The consequences of negative news are themselves negative. Far from being better informed, heavy newswatchers can become miscalibrated. They worry more about crime, even when rates are falling, and sometimes they part company with reality altogether: a 2016 poll found that a large majority of Americans follow news about Isis closely, and 77% agreed that “Islamic militants operating in Syria and Iraq pose a serious threat to the existence or survival of the United States,” a belief that is nothing short of delusional.
Consumers of negative news, not surprisingly, become glum: a recent literature review cited “misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, desensitization, and in some cases, ... complete avoidance of the news.” And they become fatalistic, saying things like “Why should I vote? It’s not gonna help,” or “I could donate money, but there’s just gonna be another kid who’s starving next week.”
So he concludes that people like Trump actually profit from this doom and gloom media reality which does not really exist. Maybe this will be pointed out by future generations as the biggest irony of the early 21st century, that the press has created the person which is fighting them now the most.
But again this not just about politics. This has implications on everyday life. Within the last 20 years the radius children move around their home to play has been reduced from 2 kilometers to less than 200 meters. And it is not because of computers and games or TV, but because parents are more afraid and the media actually supports them. They even created the word “free range parents” for people who still let their kids play outdoors like 20 years ago.
And the most incredible thing, the data supports the free range parents. It has never been this save to let kids run around. All the data support this, less violence, less accidents the world has become saver within the last 20 years. But we let media lie and even let them control our fears. If that is not Orwellian what else is?