Doomscrolling and the Obsession with Negative News
Turn on the news, catch a glimpse of the front page of the papers or even scroll through your twitter feed and you’re bound to come across a tonne of negative news. As discussed in my article ‘A Positive Result: How has Coronavirus impacted Digital Journalism?’, as a nation we have been consuming more online news during the pandemic and we are undoubtably consuming more negative news as a result. Our obsessive searching for news on the Coronavirus and other tragic recent events such as the death of George Floyd have led to the coining of a new word, doomscrolling. Doomscrolling also known as doomsufing, is defined as the act of consuming a large amount of negative news, typically without a break, to the detriment of the mental health of the person consuming it. The word has been so relevant this year that the Dictionary.com chose it as the top monthly trend in August 2020.
Why is negative news so rife?
Media researchers Galtung and Ruge conducted an investigation to find what news story’s had in common and what factors made them the top of the news agenda worldwide. They found that ‘negativity’ is the most basic news value. For this reason positive news is often given a negative slant in order to entice the reader.
Naturally, this focus on the negative is easy at this present time due to the difficult and distressing global response to the pandemic, but it’s not just the bad that is portrayed negatively. Let’s take a look at the coverage of the Coronavirus vaccine for example. The introduction of the Coronavirus vaccine to many, myself included was a great relief. It marked a moment of great progress and hope; Showing movement towards a way of combating the virus and bringing us closer to returning to normality. However, as this wave of hope began to spread amongst the public many news publications presented the story in a negative light. Using hyperbolic language to emphasise small negatives to draw attention to the bad.
One article which particularly drew my interest was in The Telegraph. Their headline read, “Two NHS workers suffer allergic reaction to Pfizer vaccine.” From the outset, the article introduces the negative, calling attention to the very small number of people that had allergic reactions out of the many thousands that had received the vaccine at this point. With many vaccines, a small number of people may indeed be allergic, but this is common place when it comes to vaccines and medication in general and should not be a cause for panic. I myself am aware of this, being allergic to one of the most widely prescribed drugs, penicillin. By emphasising the minimal danger here the media are hyping up the public whom they have a great influence over. The NHS and many health experts are urging the public not to worry about vaccines, to avoid the spread of antivaxxer propaganda. Let’s not forget that in order to role a vaccine out into the public it would have had to have gone under extensive trials and then been approved by the MHRA .
It can be easy looking at this to turn and point the finger at news publications for the constant cycle of negative news, but are we partly to blame for this focus on the negative? It has been suggested that we have a bias towards negative news and this has been proven in several experiments. Psychologists Marc Trussler and Stuart Soroka in their study ‘Consumer Demand for Cynical and Negative News Frames’, tested this theory by enrolling participants that believed they were being analysed around eye tracking techniques who were in fact being reviewed on news preferences. The majority of the test group when asked claimed to prefer good news and pointed out that media is too focused on bad news. However, the experiment results contradicted these claims. When left alone to choose whichever news they wanted to read, the majority of participants chose news that had to do with death, political scandals, money frauds, and cynicism. Showing that even though their conscious minds claimed to want more positivity in the news, their unconscious minds scanned for the negative.
Therefore, whilst it is news companies that are putting this negative news out there it is perhaps our innate need to focus on the negative that drives them to do so. If you are finding yourself caught up and overwhelmed by doomscrolling, I would suggest taking a step back from the constant consumption of the news and perhaps even seek help if you feel this could be impacting your mental health.
Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts on doomscrolling over on my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and keep an eye out for my latest blog post!
