Media Misconceptions

The media uses the same techniques time and time again to appeal to our emotions and instincts. It is their professional duty to entice people to read stories and frequently exaggerate to do so. Stereotypes are an easy way for the media to communicate using categories that we already have an immediate reaction to. Journalists know it is almost inhumane to look away from a person in pain or in need. The media picks up the negative and disastrous stories and rarely reports the good. In fact, our surveillance of suffering has improved making us more likely to see these events occurring in the past. Stories of gradual improvements would not make the headlines so statistics are often used in a dramatic way for political purposes. The media provides us with important news and information but is very selective in the stories it chooses and the way it reports.