Sensationalism - Why Does It Exist?

[The Pink Panther]

This is a term that is used a lot and a trend we commonly see in society. The term implies a journalistic piece of media or a television show that uses shocking material to overhype or persuade a situation as being more exaggerated than it really is. You see this commonly whether it's reality TV trying to persuade you to watch by hyping up all of sex and drama in the show, or politics where the media misinterprets a politician's statements into something more negative than it really is, or just in general fear-mongering that doesn't really seem to benefit anyone, other than the media companies who are making money by profiting off of people through exaggeration. Sensationalism can often have negative effects on people, commonly making them misinformed or just having an overall negative hubris on the world, when it sometimes really isn't in that way.

My question to all of you is why do we see this so commonly? Why does every form of media have to sensationalize certain ideas, stories, tv shows, or really anything in order to get an audience and is it really necessary? Does it have something to do with people generally being more interested in "saucy" subject material.

 

[Red Hood]

Most news and media is boring. If you convince people it has shock value they're gonna look.

 

[RIPhamroll]

It's basic hype that's been around for literally tens of thousands of years.

A King calling his men to arms with proclamation of glory and honour.
A priest getting his mass to cheer for the Lord in question.

The human brain is simply easily attracted and manipulated by sensation. Literally. Therefore sensationalist pieces appeal even more so. And this isn't curable.

Think about clickbait, you never got what you anticipated from the article but you still performed the behaviour of clicking on the next one.

It's not the actual substance you're addicted to, it's anticipation of a pay off. It's gambling, it's narrative tension, it's an event you're looking forward to.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

It's a way to manipulate people into either buying shit or voting a certain way.
It's control, pure and simple.

 

[Slap47]

“The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”

- Hunter S. Thompson.

Your task is simple, put forward a story that is better than all the rest that will get a middleclass tradesmen to purchase your paper. Imagine that your editor has tasked you to with pushing a certain political goal or even better, assume that you believe in the goal that your editor has tasked you with pushing. Will you tell your audience the reality of the balanced situation or will you tell that disaster is approaching if your issue is not addressed? You gotta pay rent. You gotta fight the good fight.

Imagine walking into a smoke filled room full of hundreds of writers and editors. Imagine all of those writers as your competition. Now imagine that there is a copy of that room across town at the other newspaper company.

 

[Drunk and Pour]

Well, it's our want for sensation. That's why people slow down on the road to look a major traffic accident rather than just some dude with a flat tire. Nobody wants Boringism, that's why the government has to fund NPR. I think we are getting desensitized to sensationalist mainstream media. That's why nobody believes them any more. It's scares them financially, obviously, but it also scares them ideologically because they are no longer seen as purveyors of truth but as capitalistic fear mongers losing their grasp of being bastions of information.