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In
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (p ...
and
mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...
, sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in
news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to event ...
stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotionally loaded impressions of events rather than neutrality, and may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story. Sensationalism may rely on reports about generally insignificant matters and portray them as a major influence on society, or biased presentations of newsworthy topics, in a trivial, or
tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid The Sopwith Tabloid an ...
manner, contrary to general assumptions of professional journalistic standards. Some tactics include being deliberately obtuse, appealing to emotions,"Sensationalism."Thefreedictionary.com
Accessed June 2011.
being controversial, intentionally omitting facts and
information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
,"Issue Area: Narrow Range of Debate."Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Accessed June 2011.
being loud and self-centered, and acting to obtain attention. Trivial information and events are sometimes misrepresented and exaggerated as important or significant, and often include stories about the actions of individuals and small groups of people, the
content Content or contents may refer to: Media * Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers ** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mas ...
of which is often insignificant and irrelevant to the macro-level day-to-day events occurring globally.


History

In ''A History of News'', author Mitchell Stephens (professor of
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (p ...
and mass communication at New York University) notes sensationalism can be found in the Ancient Roman '' Acta Diurna'' (official notices and announcements which were presented daily on public message boards, the perceived content of which spread with enthusiasm in illiterate societies). Sensationalism was used in books of the 16th and 17th century, to teach moral lessons. According to Stevens, sensationalism brought the news to a new audience when it became aimed at the lower class, who had less of a need to accurately understand
politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and the
economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...
, to occupy them in other matters. Through sensationalism, he claims, the audience was further educated and encouraged to take more interest in the news. The more modern forms of sensationalism developed in the course of the nineteenth century in parallel with the expansion of print culture in industrialized nations. A genre of British literature, "sensation novels," became in the 1860s the best example of how the publishing industry could capitalize on a rhetoric made of surprising turns in the narrative to market serialized fiction in the expanded market of the periodical press. The London magazine "Belgravia", which was edited by the popular author of sensation novels Mary Elizabeth Braddon between 1867 and 1876, offered one of the earliest theories of modernity and its “shock value” mediated by sensationalism. The attention-grasping rhetorical techniques found in sensation fiction were also employed in articles on science, modern technology, finance, and in historical accounts of contemporary events, as discussed by Alberto Gabriele in ''Reading Popular Culture in Victorian Print''. The collection of essays ''Sensationalism and the Genealogy of Modernity: a Global Nineteenth Century Perspective'' edited by Alberto Gabriele is also helpful to track the transhistorical presence of sensationalism in several national contexts in the course of the long nineteenth century. Scholars in the collection engage in an interdisciplinary discussion on popular culture, literature, performance, art history, theory, pre-cinema and early cinema.


In mass media

In the late 1800s, falling costs in paper production and rising revenues in advertising in the U.S. led to a drastic rise in newspaper's circulation, which attracted the growing audiences that advertisers desired. One presumed goal of sensational reporting is to increase or sustain
viewership Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Sometim ...
or readership, from which media outlets can price their
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
higher to increase their profits based on higher numbers of viewers and/or readers."What's Wrong With The News?"Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Accessed June 2011.
"Issue Area: Advertiser Influence."Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Accessed June 2011.
Sometimes this can lead to a lesser focus on objective journalism in favor of a profit motive, in which editorial choices are based upon sensational stories and presentations to increase advertising
revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive rev ...
.Sensationalism, Newspaper Profits and the Marginal Value of Watergate
Accessed September 2012
Additionally, advertisers tend to have a preference for their products or services to be reported positively in mass media, which can contribute to bias in news reporting in favor of media outlets protecting their profits and revenues, rather than reporting objectively about stated products and services."Issue Area: Censorship."Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Accessed June 2011.
However, newspapers have a duty to report and investigate stories related to political corruption. Such
investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years res ...
is right and proper when it is backed up with documents, interviews with responsible witnesses, and other primary sources. Journalists and editors are often accused of sensationalizing
scandals A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...
by those whose public image is harmed by the legitimate reporting of the scandal. News organizations are not obliged to (and are often ethically obliged ''not'' to) avoid stories that might make local, state and national public figures uncomfortable. Occasionally, news organizations mistakenly relay false information from unreliable anonymous sources, who use mass media as a tool for
retaliation Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." Pr ...
, defamation, victim and witness tampering, and monetary or personal gain. Therefore, any story based on sources who may be reasonably assumed to be motivated to act in this way is best interpreted with critical thinking. In extreme cases, mass media may report only information that makes a " good story" without regard for factual accuracy or social
relevance Relevance is the concept of one topic being connected to another topic in a way that makes it useful to consider the second topic when considering the first. The concept of relevance is studied in many different fields, including cognitive sc ...
. It has been argued that the distrust in government that arose in the aftermath of the
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's contin ...
created a new business tactic for the media and resulted in the spread of negative, dishonest and misleading news coverage of American politics; such examples include the labeling of a large number of political scandals, regardless of their importance, with the suffix "-gate".Watergate scandal changed the political landscape forever
Accessed September 2012
Such stories are often perceived (rightly or wrongly) as politically partisan or biased towards or against a group or individual because of the sensational nature in which they are reported. A media piece may report on a political figure in a biased way or present one side of an issue while deriding another. It may include sensational aspects such as zealots, doomsayers and/or junk science. Complex subjects and affairs are often subject to sensationalism. Exciting and emotionally charged aspects can be drawn out without providing the elements needed (such as pertinent background, investigative, or contextual information) for the audience to form its own opinions on the subject.


In broadcasting

Sensationalism is often blamed for the infotainment style of many news programs on radio and television. According to sociologist John Thompson, the debate of sensationalism used in the mass medium of broadcasting is based on a misunderstanding of its audience, especially the television audience. Thompson explains that the term 'mass' (which is connected to broadcasting) suggests a 'vast audience of many thousands, even millions of passive individuals'. Television news is restricted to showing the scenes of crimes rather than the crime itself because of the unpredictability of events, whereas newspaper writers can always recall what they did not witness. Television news writers have room for fewer words than their newspaper counterparts. Their stories are measured in seconds, not
column inch A column inch was the standard measurement of the amount of content in published works that use multiple columns per page. A column inch is a unit of space one column wide by high. A newspaper page Newspaper pages are laid out on a grid that co ...
es, and thus (even with footage) television stories are inherently shallower than most newspaper stories, using shorter words and familiar idioms to express ideas which a newspaper writer is more free to expand upon and define with precision.


Online

The digital revolution has completely changed the way people both create and react to news content. From a production standpoint, news outlets are now at a much higher risk of releasing content that is false because of how quickly news is circulated through the internet in order to capitalize on those views and clicks for profit. From a consumption standpoint, this means fewer people reading physical copies of newspapers and this is reflective in the way headlines are created for print media. The introduction of the term "
clickbait Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise mis ...
" into the forefront of the global lexicon has had implications in many major world events, specifically the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the United States, which reflects the growing weakness in "controlling the limits of what it is acceptable to say". Another reason for the concern over internet sensationalism is the way certain algorithms can create "news loops" that show people the exact same thing over and over again, known as " Echo chamber". Many characters on the internet have been able to profit off of these tactics by instilling fear through completely ridiculous and unverified sources which are able to self permeate online through these algorithms. While these algorithms are meant to prioritize more trustworthy sources, this doesn't always happen since they rely on keywords and phrases. As politics have become more polarized, these tactics have become increasingly prominent as news outlets realize how easy it is to push their own agendas on the internet in this fashion. It becomes easier to break the " Overton window", and the gatekeepers, journalists at major media organizations, are losing power. Many countries have implemented response efforts to this issue, as distrust in the media has become a global concern alongside the rapidly changing format of news media.


See also

*
Agnotology Within the sociology of knowledge, agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of deliberate, culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion, or win favour, particularly through the publication of inac ...
, the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt *
Betteridge's Law of Headlines Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ''no''." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the princ ...
* CNN effect *
Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
*
Clickbait Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise mis ...
* Culture of fear *
Disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...
* Dumbing down * Echo chamber (media) * Exploitation film * Fake News * Infotainment *
Jazz journalism Jazz journalism was a term applied to American sensational newspapers in the 1920s. Focused on entertainment, celebrities, sports, scandal and crime, the style was a New York phenomenon, practiced primarily by three new tabloid-size daily newspape ...
* Junk food news * Loaded words *
Man bites dog The phrase man bites dog is a shortened version of an aphorism in journalism that describes how an unusual, infrequent event (such as a man biting a dog) is more likely to be reported as news than an ordinary, everyday occurrence with similar cons ...
* Mean world syndrome * Media bias in the United States * Media circus * Media manipulation *
Misinformation Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is ''deliberately'' deceptive. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn ...
* Missing white woman syndrome *
Moral panic A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", us ...
* Profit motive * Propaganda model, in mass media * Pulp magazine * Sound bite * Spin, an interpretation of an event designed to sway public opinion * Succès de scandale * Tabloid journalism *
Tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid The Sopwith Tabloid an ...
* Trial by media * Viral phenomenon * Yellow journalism


References


External links


"What's Wrong With the News?"
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Fairness & Accuracy In reporting
{{Media manipulation Criticism of journalism Influence of mass media Mass media issues News media manipulation Public opinion Popularity Social influence