During the current times, sensationalism has become more prevalent in the media. Stories about scandals, murders, and politics have taken front pages of newspapers, top of the TV news spots and internet first search results. This media biased of sensationalism has been used as a sort of escape for consumers. Even though this ideal may seem like it is just making waves, this has been around for decades. Sensationalism has been influencing consumers and contributing to bias since the days of Yellow Journalism in mass produced newspapers.
Sensationalism as defined by Oxford Dictionary is “the presentation of stories in a way that is intended to provoke public interest or excitement, at the expense of accuracy”. This causes a manipulation of the truth in the media. It is the driven attitude that allows politicians and owners of the media to configure the news to fit their agenda. Sensationalism often takes two forms, the fake and the flashy. The fake being the overpopularized “fake news” influx that society has been exposed to over the recent years. This typically deals with debates being one sided, or one side of a story twisting the other side to fit a different narrative that benefits them more. The second form being the flashy, where things in the news and media are highlighted or given more time because of their overwrought titles, controversial topics or exaggerative overtones. This can also be referred to the saying “if it bleeds, it leads”, where the stories about traumatic crashes and kidnappings tirelessly overshadow problems that will affect society for years to come like larger issues including pollution, food scarcity, or gender equality. Both can lead to calumnious acts on people and contemptible effects on society.
For many people the media is something insidious we allow to wash over us. Something that takes little back and forth interaction and has involuntarily consumed our lives. Without even thinking, we check our phones right as we wake and right before we sleep Our mothers and grandmothers share 30 second recipe videos and hear the latest celebrity gossip in seconds. Households allow the television to play in the background of family dinner or eat around the couch while watching the evening news. Constantly we check all forms of media in wake of tragedy or important political happenings. And while all this media can be a helpful tool for a quick thought, it is often hard to decipher truth or un-swayed opinions, making sensationalism a problem that we often don’t catch. A problem that will only get worse if left alone with no repercussions. The severe effects of sensationalism on society would be mitigated if we implemented a four-step process of awareness, response, education and repetition.
A solution to fix this issue can be broken down simply into a four-step process. This way prevents an overwhelming influx of change and the repulsion to change that comes with it. The first of the process being awareness. By keeping people aware and accountable for their own actions and thoughts you can strive for solution. People would know that they can’t believe everything they read or see online. The second being response, the way a person responds to something can have a huge impact. People need to stand up to sensationalism in hopes to shut it down at the source. Choosing to “do nothing” and ignore it helps no cause and allows sensationalism to win. By standing up, society can tell the owners of media that they are unhappy with the media and will no longer feed into it. This would send a message to the owners that they need to make changes to continue to be successful. Next is education, especially to that of adolescents and young adults. In the long run, they are the future of the nation and need to be taught about the dangerous effects of sensationalism. If young people are taught about it in school through English, history, and journalism courses not only what it is, but how to refrain from feeding into the problem, they can have a large impact. Last is repetition, this is simply the spread of better practices and enforcement of the other parts of the plan. The best way to engrain something into a person is by repetition. Through repeating and sharing this process, avoiding sensationalism will become second nature.
Awareness is knowledge or perception of a situation or fact. Society needs to promulgate how these issues effect their lives and well-being. Beginning with the fake, people should learn how to find trustworthy information through judgement, source evaluation, and validation. This has become even more a problem in the “Information Age” we are currently in. It has become even harder for people to find the facts they need. It’s not hard to find information about a topic, but it is hard to find actual factual evidence and unbiased information on the internet. This can especially affect the student age generation, who no longer rush to a library to do research for a paper. Almost instantaneously they can discover thousands of search results about a particular topic at any given moment. While the internet is a tool that can promote growth to a student, it can also inhibit and hinder the student. They don’t know who to trust and how to find evidence for school work that promotes more than one side of a problem. Their eyes can be covered by the rose-colored glasses of media, making it impossible for them to find the truth vital for them to be able to make decisions for themselves. After the 2016 Presidential Election I recall everything being about rigged elections, Russian interference, and immediate discussion of impeachment. Most of which I struggled to know if it was even truthful and trustworthy. It altogether confused me and made me question how people are expected to search out the truth in media, and not just in a more “active news” period, but all the time. In terms of the flashy the problem can be just the same. Personally, I find this a problem I am often faced with. Even whilst trying to do research for this paper. I was prompted with flashy articles trying to tell me “why fake news isn’t the problem” or “10 things that are worse than media issues”. On the internet things with flashy “clickbait” types titles trend and push their way to the front of web pages. On a Google search, adolescents are more likely to click on something with multiple adjectives and descriptive words of an event. Frankly they think the real information and knowledgeable titles are boring. When the flash pushes to the front it overshadows the real factual and unbiased information that a student would actually be looking for.
Response, it’s very simple, you cannot allow your opinions to be trampled upon. When you do nothing, it is just as bad as agreeing with the problems, because it still allows the problems to persist. In fake media, viewers should respond with their opinions. They should let it be known that they will not stand for one sided or false media coverage. Adolescents and young adults are the people to make headway on this. If you examine recent political happenings and elections, widespread see more younger aged people speaking out about their beliefs, values, and thoughts. It is the younger aged members of society that are pushing people to vote and stand up for their rights. This is mainly because the outcomes will most directly affect their future. It has been proven that thirty-four million millennials of voting age voted in the 2016 Presidential Election making up 25 percent of the votes. An additional eight million more millennials were of voting age for the 2018 mid-term elections. (Youth will determine) (logos) If that same way of thinking was transferred to the issue of sensationalism, there would really be a chance at a resolution. Younger people need to respond with their points of view regarding all problems including that of media sensationalism. For flashy, the younger people are harder to persuade but still a vital part of the puzzle. Especially on social media platforms, people share, like, friend, and circulate the same information almost without thinking. Social media has become so ingrained into society that it happens just as much as people breathe. If you were to think about it, most of these overdone topics just end up creating a buzz around them, but all for the wrong reasons. Rather than refusing to share and discouraging the circulation, people should not contribute to the flash but construct well thought arguments as responses to their position. If you don’t agree with something, you should choose to speak about why and try to encourage others to do the same by not sensationalizing it but having mature discourse about the topic. Another aspect of response to the flashy is the “if it bleeds it leads” circulating with overdone headlines and images. Take for instance a story about a fatal car crash being accompanied by images that require viewer discretion. (The Disadvantages) Or a headline and photo that sparked controversy in 2012 from the New York Post that reads, “Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die/ DOOMED”. (A Picture of Controversy) This headline was accompanied by an image of a man struggling to get back on the subway platform. This photo was shared all over the internet getting responses like “that’s just the fatal craziness of the city”, when very few pointed out what they believed was ethically wrong with the image and headline. This calls into question the role of ethical journalism in the media and the fact that journalist should be held to an utmost probity. (ethos) While it is often easier for journalist to quickly gather minimalistic but sensational information about traumatic events and compile them for a press release, is it right? Should they take the route of flash and put out work that could be received unjust or unethical? Rather should they do the additional research and report responsibly with facts to back up their headline? While journalist should be held accountable, consumers should also note their opinions and response to their knowledgeable dislike of this violent and often dramatized content. Society should learn how to properly respond to the issue of sensationalism without feeding back into it. Society should also be aware that some journalists are failing to provide those basics that make up good reporting.
Education, this also goes along with the need for recourse at a younger age level. Society should be teaching its young people the harmful effects and how to combat sensationalized media. By teaching about this in schools, students will be brought up having an idea about the problems and how to fight them. This could be taught in English, Journalism, or History classes and target both the fake and flashy. By incorporating this into education we can help to teach people to be aware and react to the problem. This is something I have been heavily been exposed to in high school journalism. My senior year of high school I was the features editor of the school newspaper The Chronicle. The nature of feature news writing is to highlight events and paint vividly detailed pictures for the audience. Through that medium it is very easy to fall into a trap of flashy presentation. Often it would have been easy to over dramatize a story just to make it sound more like something a high schooler would want to read. Adding clinching verbs and adjectives to headlines and leads to catch attention was an easy route. However, I was always advised against that. Our teacher always held us to the utmost standard of true presentation of our stories. If we were to stray too far from the truth and turned it in for review, our story could very well get cut causing a frenzy to fill the blank layout. This also reigned true about presenting fake news. The Chronicle stayed very neutral and refrained from swaying one way or another. Our staff was very balanced politically and one side rarely pushed to reign supreme. The only time we would sway stories would be the editorial column, submitting both sides of the story from students with the preface being clear that these stories took opposing views. Our teacher truly taught us the importance of how to not let sensationalism rule our lives. It is a lesson I can let follow me through life and a lesson many more should learn. If more courses were taught the way mine was, students would be more knowledgeable about the harmful effects and how to refrain from feeding back into the vicious cycle.
Repetition, the way to work this idea into a habit. By repeating these steps, it will become a habit to examine and pull apart media. People will have the knowledge to respond and help fight back and help others to do the same. The ability to seek out and abjure sensationalism will become an inveterate trait.
A rebuttal to this argument would be that the media has the First Amendment right to say what they believe. The First Amendment also includes freedom of the press. My solution could be viewed as censorship, that the solution wants to blanch and limit and place boundaries on what is shared in the media. By allowing the system to continue as it is without my solution, it is much the same as the auto industry. Where the consumer is free to choose between various brands and models. Because we are an educated society, we are able to make decisions for ourselves and debunk the fake and flashy news with facts. We possess the power of the internet and can choose reliable sources to prove or disprove most any content. In fact, Snopes has turned this into a business where they intend to seek out the truth and fact check internet references. I am providing a four-step solution where each consumer does this as part of a habit.
To conclude, the effects of sensationalism in the media are severe to society. They need to be mitigated by a four-step process that allows people to understand and fix the problems. Because we live in a free society, there is room for freedom of speech and demanding consumers who prefer to validate their information intake. As seen in recent elections the millennial generation continues to grow and it is a great opportunity to educate without being swayed by the politics of the day. Regardless of their political beliefs people should use facts and truth as their informed sources.