Why Do We Prefer Bad News Over Good News?

Question:

You will need to select a topic of interest and then research that topic online, making use of:

1. informational websites e.g. Wikipedia, Pinterest and Learnit

2. social media platforms e.g. Reddit, YouTube and Twitter.

Note: These are just examples to help illustrate what informational websites and social media platforms are – you can discuss whatever sites you use in your exploration.

Your task is to produce a descriptive account that includes a paragraph on each of the following:

1. Find a topic and select four (4) online sources (use a variety of sources) to help you learn about the topic

2. Write a description about how your online sources helped you learn about your topic. The information on social constructivism may assist you with this aspect of this task. Also, consider the type of information included in the website, medium (words, pictures, moving images, spoken information) and the language used.

3. Write an evaluation of the sites and platforms you explored and how and why you selected them

4. Write a conclusion stating your key learnings about the use of online resources for learning.

This assessment is not a formal piece of writing, like an essay or report. You should use a writing style that is informal but informative, like the type of writing you commonly see on blogs – have a look at a few blogs online to get a better idea of the style of writing required for this assessment. You might consider using the four points listed in the assessment details as a guide, or even as sub-headings for your descriptive account. You can write in the first person but this does not mean that you should not take care with your expression, grammar, and spelling – correct language usage is a criterion for this assessment.

You must acknowledge the sources you use.

1. Description of how/why each online source has helped you learn more about the chosen topic.

2. A brief evaluation of why you think your selections are good quality online sources. For example, the credibility/reliability of the sources (e.g. author or professional organisation), number of ‘hits’, comments and external links the sources provide (where appropriate) or how up-to-date the sources are.

3. Structure: your ideas are presented in a well-structured and logical order.

4. Appropriate language and expression with attention to correct spelling and grammar.

5. Acknowledgement of sources: you’ve indicated where you your ideas have come from, and provided a list of references.

6. Conclusion: drawing together your ideas and summarising what you have learnt about an online resource.

It has been reported in media studies that bad news outweighs good news by the ratio 1:17 where for every seventeen negative news there is only one positive news. This predicament raises the long standing debate on what news sells and why? Are people addicted to bad news? And how fair it is to blame it all on the media? The answer is not quite surprising. In retrospect, it needs to be understood that media practitioners and journalists are not pessimistic or sadists by nature. Their actions are driven by demand Vs Supply equation. News with negative content does tend to garner more attention (Stossel, 2013). It’s not news if everything was well in paradise. On the contrary, the disappearance of the Malaysian flight, for example, is popular news (Stossel, 2013). People’s generally care less about the rest of the world when the world they’re living is peaceful and quiet and their interest in news is more intense when there is a perceived threat (Greenslade, 2007) because at most instances people have this tendency of comparing and putting themselves in the particular scenario and reacting to it (Wade, 2013). Media houses and newspapers when it comes down to it are just businesses thriving on viewership and revenues which tends to be higher when audiences are jarred with shocking and surprising news which would explains the reliance on bad news (Pinterest.com, 2015). People are stimulated to read bad news and know what has gone wrong rather than good things and therefore, it wouldn’t be fair to put all the blame on the media (Greenslade, 2007).

The Role of Media in News Coverage

Informational websites are a great source of online study material. Though it is important to choose the sources wisely, some of the websites like Wikipedia, Pinterest and so on, though they are not generally accepted as reliable academic references can be a great source of secondary information. Pinterest employs a method of pinning pictures from websites so that when a user clicks the image he/she is taken to the original website for content. Since its birth, pinterest has steadily grown in size, popularity as well as the content. The website layout was simple with relevant images used. The site also offered good information about the topic of research of this assignment. The page layout makes the entries and information clear and easy to note. Though these websites are good sources of initial information, it is necessary that the information be cross-checked across a more reliable platform. During the course of this assignment, the online newspaper website was also used for reliable information. Articles from the online website of “The Guardian” were studied to obtain further information about the topic under research. The information was also checked in “The New York Times”. Since, newspapers are generally the carriers of real time news to the masses the reliability of the source of information is high.

The importance of social media in storytelling and sending messages across the world has been emphasized time and again. Facebook with a wide reach and high proportion of users tops the list of social media sites that help obtain information. Youtube comes second by a very close margin. For this study, information from videos across Youtube has been used. News in these media is transferred via shared news, images and videos with a lot of people carrying on live discussions on the platform. Furthermore, people in the site of an incident also tend to share news immediately and such is the power of social media. This information is then shared and reposted multiple times and within minutes reaches a wide number of audiences. The reliability of these sites for information is also very high since the news usually is passed on by word of mouth talks and by real people in real situations. There are rare cases of people playing pranks but the percentage could be as low as being negligible. Also, social media has the advantage of knowing people’s view about a particular topic or incident that helps in understanding the mentality.

For instance, in the video “Are we addicted to bad news?” Tim wade takes us through the mentality of people in perceiving and being interested in bad news. However, even though the reliability of the information from social media is high, these are not the first choices for acquiring information about a certain topic. While social media users are exposed to number of news and events via these platforms, it is equally true that a lot of critical issues occurring around the world tend to be missed out. Also, the information obtained from these sites could be subjective and biased. But according to The New York Times, spreading of good news is higher in social media compared to bad news.

The main criteria for selection included search through the search engine Google. The top results conveyed were with these sites. While Wikipedia tends to top search results usually, this particular topic did not have relevance to Wikipedia topics and was hence ruled out. The sites chosen were based on the credibility of the website, the author, and the authenticity of the information. Any unreferenced idea or information was cross checked multiple times to find the similarity or variance. Also, the timeliness of the information was evaluated by checking the specific dates of information. Any questionable data was double checked using other reliable resources to confirm the validity.

The easier availability of online resources is leading to increased turn towards these for research purposes. While it may be stated that many resources available are online versions of familiar, reliable hard copy sources, there are also a number of unpublished sources that need to be considered. Seeking out information from the internet also has the ability to increase student involvement in a particular study. But it is important to remember that misleading, inaccurate and undisciplined materials and information are also available in the internet and a lack of firm knowledge and understanding can lead to unwise selections of resources from the internet. Hence it is necessary that any information found on the internet be critically evaluated using established criteria to find those sources that are legitimate.

References

1. Greenslade, R. (2007). The good news about bad news – it sells. the Guardian.
2. Iggers, J. (1999). Good news, bad news. Boulder, Colo.: WestviewPress.
3. McCoy, J. (2014). New Outbrain Study Says Negative Headlines Do Better Than Positive. Business 2 Community.
4. com. (2015). Bad news always sells more than good news It preaches better too.
5. Stossel, J. (2013). John Stossel – The Business of Bad News. YouTube.
6. Tierney, J. (2013). Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks. The New York Times.
7. Wade, T. (2013). Are We Addicted To Bad News? YouTube.