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Negativity drives online news consumption

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Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#361

Post by dahart »

regpertom wrote: post #355
dahart wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the response, but yeah I just don’t buy that 4chan is better on any axis ever, especially for important world news. I see and acknowledge that you lack trust in mainstream news and your government, and there’s probably a longer story there, but I think it’s objectively false to claim you’ll find more truth on 4chan than mainstream news. It might be fair to say that certain subjects will be discussed that…

Isn’t the pretence important? If I talk to a bunch of people at the pub I’m likely to get various answers, increase the size of the pub and I’ll get to hear all kinds of different stuff and since it’s just people at a pub I can take it or leave it at my will. But when there’s perceived authority involved, a trusted newspaper, maybe a uni lecturer, that kind of thing, then it’s easy to be frustrated that you still hav…

Perceived authority of the source is important to the question of how many people trust & believe some information, yes, you’re right.

This is why “Q” claimed to be a high-level government official, for example, to attempt to establish authority. Pretense, or just experience or expertise or authority, is always there even with the stuff on 4chan.

The authority of a source is a shortcut for evaluating the truth of a source’s information. I think this is what @t12hrow meant by the question of practicality. It takes a long time to verify information on it’s merits alone.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#362

Post by dahart »

t12hrow wrote: post #353
dahart wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the response, but yeah I just don’t buy that 4chan is better on any axis ever, especially for important world news. I see and acknowledge that you lack trust in mainstream news and your government, and there’s probably a longer story there, but I think it’s objectively false to claim you’ll find more truth on 4chan than mainstream news. It might be fair to say that certain subjects will be discussed that…

That's a fair argument, and I can't dispute it. Thinking about this made me reflect a different way to put it. It shouldn't be one vs. the other, but rather, 4chan (and similar forums) are a meta reading of the news and train you to see blind spots or what's not being reported, listen to arguments from both sides of the aisle, and sprinkles a healthy dose of skepticism. After all, most of the discussion revolves arou…

FWIW I upvoted earlier but wanted to add that I agree with this completely, and got surprised by your kindness and acceptance and self-reflection, enough that I feel sheepish about my tone above.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#363

Post by t12hrow »

dahart wrote: post #362
t12hrow wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair argument, and I can't dispute it. Thinking about this made me reflect a different way to put it. It shouldn't be one vs. the other, but rather, 4chan (and similar forums) are a meta reading of the news and train you to see blind spots or what's not being reported, listen to arguments from both sides of the aisle, and sprinkles a healthy dose of skepticism. After all, most of the discussion revolves arou…

FWIW I upvoted earlier but wanted to add that I agree with this completely, and got surprised by your kindness and acceptance and self-reflection, enough that I feel sheepish about my tone above.

Hey man not at all and I'm glad we found a middle ground. Cheers mate!

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#364

Post by thrashh »

coldtea wrote: post #227
ar-nelson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, news serves three purposes: --- 1. To let you know about local or world events that could affect you and those close to you. 2. To let you know about world events that affect others far away, in order to judge the effectiveness of political decisions and the necessity of future political decisions. 3. As a form of entertainment derived from the ongoing story of world history (or celebrity gossip, or…

> #2 is perhaps necessary for democracy to work Citizens that are active and care, is what's necessary for democracy to work, that is, citizens which actively monitor, and participate in, political developments. Mere "informed voters" just voting once every 4-5 years do not really make democracy, even if we were to be generous and assume that the elections-very-X-years model and the existing representation hierarchie…

Mere informed voters don’t make a democracy but a democracy wouldn’t exist if mere informed voters weren’t in the loop.

Active citizens are like leaders of a group. A group needs a leader but a group also needs its members.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#365

Post by endominus »

wolverine876 wrote: post #340
endominus wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way are you allowed to change state level policy on those issues? Should you (and by extension, everyone in your democratic society) be allowed to do so?

> In what way are you allowed to change state level policy on those issues? State level policy depends on public support or opposition. For example, re Ukraine, US policymakers and others - from Fox News to the Russians to internationalists and many others - are carefully monitoring public opinion and trying to shape it. They are investing a lot of time and resources in that. Why are they doing it if public opinion d…

>State level policy depends on public support or opposition.

Arguable - I'd say even unlikely in most real world situations. The US has recently had a wildly unpopular president who showed remarkable indifference to said public opposition. And relying on the media to gauge public support, or inform the populace in objective terms about the actions of their representatives, is inadvisable. It is not difficult to find instances of the same media organizations arguing both in favor and against public policies depending on the elected official enacting them[0][1]. In that regard, mainstream media seems more akin to a tool of propaganda, shaping opinion and manufacturing consent after the fact, than a useful organ of democratic governance.

The issue is that the control the population realistically has over their representatives in a democratic republic like every (?) modern democracy is by necessity of the size of said governments extremely limited. You can't have a referendum on every issue, so for the most part all the public gets to decide is if someone did a good job over the last X years. I recommend reading Democracy for Realists for a more in-depth look, but suffice to say that that level of interaction is far too coarse to guide public policy on immediate, subtle, and complex issues like Ukraine, COVID, or Chinese foreign policy. If something is not a core issue (i.e. something that the parties have split and staked their identities on, like women's rights, access to guns, immigration, etc) or is so universally desirable that everyone just wants more of it (i.e. visible short-term economic growth - note that long-term economic growth is generally not rewarded by the electorate), policymakers have essentially no incentive to actually care, because their voters won't care enough about those issues when it matters to sway their vote one way or another.

To your last question; the public's opinion of a decision doesn't influence whether a policymaker will make the decision. The point of the media is not to inform the public on what their representatives are doing, it is to shape the narrative of politics in the country. The actual decisions, the policy positions, are for the most part incidental to that. The causal arrow goes the other way. See also: [2][3][4]

[0]: https://mobile.twitter.com/BaldingsWorld/status/153358567932...

[1]: https://www.racket.news/p/the-sovietization-of-the-american (search "Khashoggi")

[2]: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/01/marc-edwards-...

[3]: https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/c1fk5l/newsweek_in...

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#366

Post by Shocka1 »

UncleEntity wrote: post #222
ar-nelson wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the sense that you think I'm saying more here than I actually am. I'm not proposing that this is the only kind of news that should exist, only that it would be nice if it existed for the kind of people that want to read (only) this kind of news. And I'm generally in agreement that most attempts to quantify 'truth' in media are hopelessly dependent on personal bias---but this mostly shows up in category #2 in my…

> …a government news service's commitment to the principles I listed could be defined by enforceable laws. The problem is whoever controls the government and controls the news is also the one enforcing the laws. You want to see suppression of “fake news”, aka anything that makes the ruling party look bad, then look no further than government run media services. I think they thought long and hard before they add freed…

Summed up NPR pretty well. I listen to NPR, but sometimes it gets a bit much on the partisan stuff. However, they are still my choice for anything news related. I noticed a big change in them around the 2016 election when they shut down their comment section.

Since you brought up that abortion segment, here is another from last November when they ran audio of an actual abortion. Beware - it's brutal:

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/03/1133790770/what-its-like-insi...

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#367

Post by sheepybloke »

gwbrooks wrote: post #10

Former newspaper city editor here. With few exceptions, positive stories -- although readers clamored for them in surveys -- never drove newsrack sales the way negative stories did. That's why we had a whole section for feel-good features but they didn't usually get prime front-page real estate. In the age of infinite content, headlines have become a sort of drama arms race. But the basic dynamic of what works and wh…

I feel like you could break up negative stories into a lot of batches. Would you say the type of negative stories have changed? Maybe towards more outrage or drama stories instead of fear-based stories?

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#368

Post by EricE »

Dirty Laundry Don Henley

[Verse 1] I make my livin' off the evenin' news Just give me somethin', somethin' I can use People love it when you lose They love dirty laundry

[Verse 2] Well, I coulda' been an actor, but I wound up here I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear Come and whisper in my ear Give us dirty laundry [Chorus] Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em all around

[Verse 3] We got the bubble-headed bleached-blonde, comes on at five She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye It's interesting when people die Give us dirty laundry

[Verse 4] Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry

[Verse 5] You don't really need to find out what's goin' on You don't really wanna know just how far it's gone Just leave well enough alone Eat your dirty laundry

[Chorus] Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're stiff Kick 'em all around

[Post-Chorus] (Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're stiff Kick 'em all around)

[Verse 6] Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie We love to cut you down to size We love dirty laundry [Verse 7] We can do "The Innuendo", we can dance and sing When it's said and done, we haven't told you a thing We all know that crap is king Give us dirty laundry!

[Outro] (Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down When they're up, when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down)

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#369

Post by whitemary »

timeon wrote: post #301
whitemary wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same but I just don't vote at all, unless there are any strong trustworthy pro-worker candidates which basically doesn't happen. I will also show up to vote against anti-worker ballot measures, which are more frequent.

There are barely any Left-wing policies because there are no Left-wing voters anyway.

I would go one step further: There is no left wing to speak of in the United States, and if there were then it would only vote for its own democratically disciplined candidates.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#370

Post by hot_gril »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #261
hot_gril wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went the other way, expanding the news I read to include more international stuff. Really makes me see the partisan stuff in the US as silly, so I don't get heated about it, just lazily keep up with what's happening. International propaganda is easier to spot cause I'm not living in it, which helps me identify it more at home. Anything I consider real news is still too far away to really upset me but important enou…

I only read biz/economic news religiously, like stock market crashes, bank failures, layoffs, etc…because they are more likely to affect me and I can act on that news. Business news also seems to have less bias, since they are judged on their ability to help their consumers make and retain money, rather than just cater to their cognitive biases.

Not sure if this is what you're referring to, but there's a lot of "buy now" or "sell now" news that seems like straight up market manipulation.
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