News Consumption and Its Unpleasant Side Effect
Studying the Effect of Hard and Soft News Exposure on Mental Well-Being Over Time
Abstract
Abstract. Following the news is generally understood to be 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 = 2,767), we demonstrate that the consumption of hard news television programs has a negative effect on the development of mental well-being over time. 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-à-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.
References
2012).
(What’s good and bad in political communication research? Normative standards for evaluating media and citizen performance . In H. A. SemetkoM. ScammellEds., The SAGE handbook of political communication (pp. 97–112). London, UK: Sage.1972). Anticipated communication and mass media information-seeking. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 188–199.
(2014). Entertainment and politics revisited: How non-escapist forms of entertainment can stimulate political interest and information seeking. Journal of Communication, 64(3), 369–396. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12095
(2002). Sex, lies, and war: How soft news brings foreign policy to the inattentive public. American Political Science Review, 96(1), 91–110. doi: 10.1017/S0003055402004252
(2003). Soft news goes to war: Public opinion and American foreign policy in the new media age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
(1998). The rise of solutions journalism. Columbia Journalism Review, 36(6), 36–39.
(1998). News we can use: An audience perspective on the tabloidisation of news in the United States. Javnost-the Public, 5(3), 33–49. doi: 10.1080/13183222.1998.11008681
(2010). Is there a gap between the news choices of journalists and consumers? A relational and dynamic approach. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 15(4), 420–440. doi: 10.1177/1940161210374646
(2014).
(Gescheiden media? Sociaal-culturele verschillen in mediaconsumptie . In M. BovensP. DekkerW. TiemeijerEds., Gescheiden werelden? Een verkenning van sociaal-culturele tegenstellingen in Nederland[Separated worlds? An exploration of socio-cultural contradictions in the Netherlands] (pp. 235–254). Den Haag, The Netherlands: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid.2015). Soft news with hard consequences? Introducing a nuanced measure of soft versus hard news exposure and its relationship with political cynicism. Communication Research, 42, 701–731. doi: 10.1177/0093650214537520
(2015). At odds: Laughing and thinking? The appreciation, processing, and persuasiveness of political satire. Journal of Communication, 65(5), 721–744. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12173
(2001). Television. European Review, 9(3), 245–256. doi: 10.1017/s1062798701000230
(1998). The infotainment of politics. Political Communication, 15(2), 149–164. doi: 10.1080/10584609809342363
(1996). News frames, political cynicism, and media cynicism. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 546, 71–84. doi: 10.1177/0002716296546001007
(2003). What is quality television news? A plea for extending the professional repertoire of newsmakers. Journalism Studies, 4(1), 15–29. doi: 10.1080/14616700306496
(2010). Crime, foreigners and hard news: A cross-national comparison of reporting and public perception. Journalism, 11(1), 3–19. doi: 10.1177/1464884909350640
(2017). The economy, the news, and the public, ICA 67th Annual Conference, San Diego, CA
(2011). Vlaamse televisiejournaals: Het buitenland verdwijnt van de radar: Criminaliteit, cultuur, politiek en buitenland in de vlaamse televisiejournaals (2003–2010)
([Flemish television news: The overseas disappears from the radar: Crime, culture, politics and foreign news in the Flemish television news] . Retrieved from http://www.nieuwsarchief.be/docs/Nieuwsmonitor_4.pdf2008). Hedonia, eudaimonia, and well-being: An introduction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9(1), 1–11. doi: 10.1007/s10902-006-9018-1
(2008). The effects of weather on daily mood: A multilevel approach. Emotion, 8(5), 662–667. doi: 10.1037/a0013497
(2006). Getting hooked on news: Uses and gratifications and the formation of news habits among college students in an internet environment. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(2), 193–210. doi: 10.1207/s15506878jobem5002_2
(2017).
(Negativity . In C. H. de VreeseF. EsserD. N. HopmannEds., Comparing political journalism (pp. 71–91). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.2005). Understanding the relationship between communication and political knowledge: A model comparison approach using panel data. Political Communication, 22(4), 423–446. doi: 10.1080/10584600500311345
(1988). Violence and terror in the mass media. Paris, France: Unesco.
(1986).
(Living with television: The dynamics of the cultivation process . In J. BryantD. ZillmannEds., Perspectives on media effects (pp. 17–40). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.2001). Explicating sensationalism in television news: Content and the bells and whistles of form. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45(4), 635–655. doi: 10.1207/s15506878jobem4504_6
(2004). Mediated politics and citizenship in the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 55(1), 545–571. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141550
(2008). Framing persuasive appeals: Episodic and thematic framing, emotional response, and policy opinion. Political Psychology, 29(2), 169–192. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2008.00622.x
(2001). What is news? Galtung and Ruge revisited. Journalism Studies, 2(2), 261–280. doi: 10.1080/14616700118449
(2011). Arousing news characteristics in Dutch television news 1990–2004: An exploration of competitive strategies. Mass Communication and Society, 14(1), 93–112. doi: 10.1080/15205431003615893
(2008). Explaining effects of sensationalism on liking of television news stories: The role of emotional arousal. Communication Research, 35(3), 319–338. doi: 10.1177/0093650208315960
(1991). Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
(2016). News coverage and attitudes on immigration: Public and commercial television news compared. European Journal of Communication, 31(6), 642–660. doi: 10.1177/0267323116669456
(1996). Bad news revisited: The portrayal of violence, conflict, and suffering on television news. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 2(3), 201–216. doi: 10.1207/s15327949pac0203_2
(2016). Weer een aanslag: Zij willen er niks meer over lezen
([Another attack: They do not want to read anything about it] . Retrieved from https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/07/25/weg-met-die-foute-wereld-3338264-a15132262016). Weg met het rotnieuws
([Go away with the bad news] . Retrieved from http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nederland/column/pieter-klein/weg-met-het-rotnieuws2011). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
(2013). News audiences revisited: Theorizing the link between audience motivations and news consumption. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 57(3), 300–317. doi: 10.1080/08838151.2013.816712
(2010). Hard news, soft news, ‘general’ news: The necessity and utility of an intermediate classification. Journalism, 11(1), 37–56. doi: 10.1177/1464884909350642
(2012). Negativity in political news: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 179–202. doi: 10.1177/1464884911427800
(1922). Public opinion. New York, NY: Macmillan.
(2003). Setting the public fear agenda: A longitudinal analysis of network TV crime reporting, public perceptions of crime, and FBI crime statistics. Journal of Communication, 53(1), 61–73. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2003.tb03005.x
(2010). All the news fit to post? Comparing news content on the web to newspapers, television, and radio. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 87(3–4), 548–562. doi: 10.1177/107769901008700307
(1999). Community, communication, and participation: The role of mass media and interpersonal discussion in local political participation. Political Communication, 16(3), 315–336. doi: 10.1080/105846099198659
(2017). The softening of journalistic political communication: A comprehensive framework model of sensationalism, soft news, infotainment, and tabloidization. Communication Theory, 27(2), 136–155. doi: 10.1111/comt.12102
(2000). Doing well and doing good: How soft news and critical journalism are shrinking the news audience and weakening democracy – And what news outlets can do about it. Cambridge, UK: Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
(2000). Posttraumatic stress two years after the Oklahoma city bombing in youths geographically distant from the explosion. Psychiatry, 63(4), 358–370. doi: 10.1080/00332747.2000.11024929
(1986). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. London, UK: Heinemann.
(2010).
(Latent growth curve models . In G. R. HancockR. O. MuellerEds., The reviewer’s guide to quantitative methods in the social sciences (pp. 185–198). London, UK: Routledge.2007). Post-broadcast democracy: How media choice increases inequality in political involvement and polarizes elections. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
(2009). Games and recovery: The use of video and computer games to recuperate from stress and strain. Journal of Media Psychology, 21(3), 126–142. doi: 10.1027/1864-1105.21.3.126
(2011). Entertaining media use and the satisfaction of recovery needs: Recovery outcomes associated with the use of interactive and noninteractive entertaining media. Media Psychology, 14(2), 192–215. doi: 10.1080/15213269.2011.573466
(2012). Hard and soft news: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 221–239. doi: 10.1177/1464884911427803
(2014). Media entertainment and well-being – Linking hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experience to media-induced recovery and vitality. Journal of Communication, 64(3), 456–478. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12097
(1976). Public affairs television and the growth of political malaise: The case of “the selling of the pentagon”. The American Political Science Review, 70(2), 409–432. doi: 10.2307/1959647
(2003). Television news and the cultivation of fear of crime. Journal of Communication, 53(1), 88–104. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2003.tb03007.x
(2014). Seriously entertained: Antecedents and consequences of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences with political talk shows on TV. Mass Communication and Society, 17(3), 379–399. doi: 10.1080/15205436.2014.891135
(1992). Personalized bias in news: The potency of the particular? Communication Research, 19(1), 91–108. doi: 10.1177/009365092019001004
(2009). Broader and deeper: A study of newsroom culture in a time of change. Journalism, 10(2), 197–216. doi: 10.1177/1464884908100601
(2002). Psychological reactions to terrorist attacks: Findings from the national study of Americans’ reactions to September 11. JAMA, 288(5), 581–588. doi: 10.1001/jama.288.5.581
(2001). A national survey of stress reactions after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. New England Journal of Medicine, 345(20), 1507–1512. doi: 10.1056/NEJM200111153452024
(2008). The drama of media coverage of terrorism: Emotional and attitudinal impact on the audience. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 31(7), 627–640. doi: 10.1080/10576100802144064
(2007). Reinforcing spirals: The mutual influence of media selectivity and media effects and their impact on individual behavior and social identity. Communication Theory, 17(3), 281–303. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2885.2007.00296.x
(2012). The gatekeeping function: Distributions of information in media and the real world. The Journal of Politics, 74(2), 514–528. doi: 10.1017/s002238161100171x
(2010). Media malaise or a virtuous circle? Exploring the causal relationships between news media exposure, political news attention and political interest. European Journal of Political Research, 49(5), 575–597. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2009.01913.x
(2015). The WHO-5 well-being index: A systematic review of the literature. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(3), 167–176. doi: 10.1159/000376585
(1972). Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology, 77(4), 660–679. doi: 10.1086/225193
(2014). Media, macht en politiek: De verkiezingscampagne van 2012
([Media, power and politics: The election campaign of 2012] . Diemen, The Netherlands: AMB.1996). Psychometric qualities of the RAND 36-item health survey 1.0: A multidimensional measure of general health status. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 3(2), 104–122. doi: 10.1207/s15327558ijbm0302_2
(1992). The MOS 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36): I conceptual framework and item selection. Medical Care, 30(6), 473–483. doi: 10.1037/t06708-000
(2014). The news-democracy narrative and the unexpected benefits of limited news consumption: The case of news resisters. Journalism, 15(7), 834–849. doi: 10.1177/1464884913504260
(1991).
(Television viewing and physiological arousal . In J. BryantD. ZillmannEds., Responding to the screen: Reception and reaction processes (pp. 103–133). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.