Things the media does to manufacture outrage

290 pointsby akshat_hover 9 years ago

31 comments

c2the3rdover 9 years ago

This article is far too shallow in its diagnosis.Yes, the media manufactures outrage for attention. This is not the problem. The media has done the same for as long as it has existed. The problem is that real people are willing to believe and act upon this "outrage", sometimes in an extreme manner, to avoid being on the "wrong side".The action I care about isn't the media writing a libellous "story" about how "outraged" people are at some action of mine, though they are scum for it. What I care about is when people use it as justification to call my boss/family/friends and go after me personally.It's not the media that doxxes, makes death threats, and gets people fired. Who does that is a population that increasingly cannot tell the difference between words and violence, a population that sees bad thoughts as assault and disagreement as evil. Even the smallest infraction is justification for ruining lives.Brendan Eich was ousted from his position at Mozilla for his donation years ago. A pizzeria owner was threatened with death for merely saying he wouldn't serve gays. The mob retaliations are completely disproportionate to the "crime".That's why people are afraid of the new outrage. They know one violation of the ever changing set of rules can now cause a mob to go nuclear on everything they hold dear.

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gkobergerover 9 years ago

I hate when articles hide behind an invented "Twitter backlash", and then include 4-5 tweets with a handful of retweets. 6,000 tweets are sent every single second. You could build a narrative for anything with that logic.If your best example is a grammatically challenged tweet that racked up 4 favs and a retweet... you're probably inventing a controversy.Here's some insane examples from the first page of a Google News search for "Twitter Backlash":<a href="http://www.prweek.com/article/1372418/apple-faces-twitter-backlash-racism-allegation-australia-store" rel="nofollow">http://www.prweek.com/article/1372418/apple-faces-twitter-ba...</a><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/ruby-rose-faces-backlash-twitter-6833436" rel="nofollow">http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/ruby-rose-faces-b...</a><a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/711079/raven-symone-angers-twitter-with-her-spring-valley-high-school-assault-comments" rel="nofollow">http://www.eonline.com/news/711079/raven-symone-angers-twitt...</a><a href="http://www.her.ie/life/bloomingdales-forced-to-apologise-to-twitter-backlash-after-including-date-rape-message-in-christmas-catalogue/264317" rel="nofollow">http://www.her.ie/life/bloomingdales-forced-to-apologise-to-...</a>

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HappyTypistover 9 years ago

This is a consequence of writers at Business Insider and other brands being ranked by the number of clicks their pieces generate. Writing for them is more of a social science than journalism, with specific words and phrasing A/B tested and Web page designs optimised to get you to stay on the page just a tiny bit longer (so Google doesn't penalise them for bounce rate). Ever recall how BI articles end with an unrelated, click bait video?

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exstudent2over 9 years ago

What a great writeup! This is an example of an issue 100% created by the media.To be fair though there is a culture of "outrage" that exists. The media may be implicit in propagating it but they don't always create it.For example, this recently happened:<a href="http://hlrecord.org/2015/11/fascism-at-yale/" rel="nofollow">http://hlrecord.org/2015/11/fascism-at-yale/</a>I think it's important to study the media's role in creating and extending the reach of outrage, but it's equally important not to deny that there is a growing movement of people who are interested in limiting free speech and get very outrageous about it.

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icanhackitover 9 years ago

Where possible I encourage friends and family to approach news as a single recent frame from a long-playing narrative, a blurb tacked onto the end of history. Without history you have no context. My agenda is to get them to ignore the 24/7 news cycle and review topics from a historical standpoint - Wikipedia and podcasts make this easier than ever before. They're imperfect sources, but if you want to crawl through dozens of topics for no cost, they're fantastic tools. From there you can purchase books on topics that you'd like to learn more about.Something about the Middle East? You need at least a hundred years of historical knowledge to understand what is playing out. Ideally more. But it's not that simple; you need to understand the politics of countries that are recent but significant players.And this is the problem: people believe it's reasonable to form an opinion on complex matters from consuming a few soundbites and massaged footage. How is that at all reasonable? Answer: it isn't.

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lmorris84over 9 years ago

I'm always suspicious when news articles embed tweets as "evidence". The one case that sticks out for me was Tim Hunt losing his job because of his joke at a conference. I wonder if UCL also fell for media manufactured outrage in the decision to hastily get rid of him, or whether there really were tens of thousands of twitter keyboard warriors venting their offence all over the situation.Either way, for my own sanity I now have to avoid twitter and any article that even remotely looks like it might be about someone being offended about something.

pdkl95over 9 years ago

TL;DR - just watch [4]The internet has a serious problem with fame.Before the internet, fame was usually something that required an investment in media access. Everybody knows about the big Hollywood movie because they paid for a lot of advertising/etc. A low-budget film could potentially be more popular if people knew about it, but the meager (or nonexistent) advertising budget usually guaranteed it would never[1] become famous.This is what the internet changed. It's fundamental power is that anybody can publish because the network doesn't differentiate between "publishing" hosts and "consumer" hosts. All peers are supposed[2] to be equal in capability. The internet is media access. What used to require significant investment of time and/or money now happens to people regularly when they post something casually on the internet: they can become famous.Unfortunately, our social norms are still adapting to this change. As this article shows, trivial posts are incorrectly interpreted and the author ends up wading through flames and insults. This is because what started as a casual post is now addressing an audience.For a very good explanation of this type of change-in-relationship, I suggest watching "This is Phil Fish"[4]. As this is HN, many of you probably know the drama involving Phil Fish and his game "Fez", but tht doesn't matter because this video is about everybody who is not Phil Fish: the audience that supplies the projection, tokenism, and hatred that fuels the media when they want cheap hits/impressions.--[1] I am ignoring the phenomena of some movies gaining a cult following a long time after their initial release for simplicity and questionable relevance (time).[2] NAT has destroyed a lot of this equality, creating a situation where you have to get the permission of a 3rd party (port forwarding at the router, some centralized server, etc). If we allow this digital imprimatur[3] to continue to exist, then the internet has truly reverted back to "TV".[3] <a href="https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/" rel="nofollow">https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/</a>[4] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-owa2w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-owa2w</a>

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peetersover 9 years ago

The Starbucks fiasco was fascinating and frightening to me. Timeline:- Nov 5: Breitbart reports "Starbucks faces criticism from politicians and campaign groups today after it decided to remove all references to the festive season from its Christmas red cups'- Nov 8: Huffington Post picks up the Breitbart story and reports "Some Christians Are Extremely Unhappy About Starbucks' New Holiday Cups"Note the difference in headlines. This started as a Tory MP and a professional Christian shit-stirring group in the U.K. criticizing the move. It is rapidly generalized to "Christians".In an age of people consuming news in 140 characters or less, news outlets really have a responsibility to apply the same journalistic integrity to their headline as to the rest of the article. They are there to report the news, not cause the news.

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dansoover 9 years ago

I can't be the only person who sees the irony in that this great post is written by someone who works for Upworthy, an outlet who more than any other spawned the science of using superlatives in clickbait headlines to increase Facebook engagement.

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Maarten88over 9 years ago

Another angle to this is that there are agencies, who manipulate media and stir up controversies like these just to get attention for their clients' brands and products.[1]This whole story (including this post) may just as well be part of a smart promotion stunt for Sephora lipstick. Some agency might be getting paid for generating all this attention, stirring up controversy around the brand, with the media and bloggers masterfully manipulated into cooperation. There's no way to know...[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying</a>

wwzukover 9 years ago

Your best bet is just to get rid of all social media. I honestly think that the drama that social media encourages is unhealthy and subtly ruining people's lives.It gives the impression that certain political groups are more influential than they are. It encourages outrage culture and the censorship that follows that movement. It's a lazy tool for certain types of journalists.There's so many more constructive things to do than use social media. Delete your accounts, wait a month for any addictive urges to pass and enjoy life again.

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the_cat_kittlesover 9 years ago

great write up. i've always felt that people on tv and writers on the net should really only talk about their own opinions- if there is something "people are outraged about", then have them on to discuss it.

javajoshover 9 years ago

Okay, now what? The media outlets and authors responsible for this will continue doing it - and probably got (and will get) high praise for the traffic numbers.She gets some more attention for calling attention to this, and increases our collective cynicism a little more (and rightly so).It's tempting to call this a victimless crime, but it's really not. The victims are those who are actually outraged, often by actually outrageous things, like US police taking people's money, beating them up, and killing them. Or by regulatory capture in energy and banking. Or by US foreign policy hypocrisy. Or any number of other things.Honestly, if there was some way for me to fine media outlets in general and specific authors in particular for this behavior, I would do it. It is wrong to shovel shit into people's minds especially if you have an official "press" designation. You've violated trust, and if the media doesn't police itself, then the media itself is going to be replaced with something that does.

kelukelugamesover 9 years ago

I hear more people complain about outrage than actual outrage. It's especially hilarious when I go to sensitivity training and a bunch of privileged co-workers complain about being afraid to have fun.

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tdklover 9 years ago

Oh the drama.Close down Twitter, the 140 characters are exactly enough why those things get blown out of proportion. Also why ADD "journalists" adore Twitter.

babyover 9 years ago

I was thinking earlier today that I felt like I was now understanding why my parents made me believe in Santa Claus. It's because you need to learn only on that you can't trust people like that. Maybe they should make a law or something that 1 out of every 100 news must be fake, so that people would be more compelled to check out facts.Also journalism = marketing now. Headlines, scoops, shocking videos...

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ShirsenduKover 9 years ago

The saddest part is that the best public communication channel; Twitter; has been hijacked to become an attention seeking blow horn.

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ams6110over 9 years ago

I don't read the mainstream media. I don't use Facebook, Twitter, etc. I don't really notice any of this.

darkhornover 9 years ago

You should see Turkish news on web sites. "Scientists are in shock! Shock shock shock! Evry european talks about this! Here is what everybody should give attention!"

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avn2109over 9 years ago

From the article:"Is the world more easily “outraged” than it used to be? I don’t think so, but then again, there’s no real way to tell."Presumably one could go build google N-gram timeseries plots for various n-grams associated with what the article calls "outrage culture" and then look for big bumps in the curve.I'm not close enough to the phenomenon to guess the correct buzzwords. Maybe "problematic" or "offensive"?

necessityover 9 years ago

I like how she exempts herself from "the evil media", while being in the media to start with.

petergatsbyover 9 years ago

"World outrage" isn't a constant.The internet means information travels faster than ever before, but also inadvertently causes "interesting things" to outpace "the truth".Properties like Upworthy/Buzzfeed/ect. exacerbate this. Von D is right not to capitulate.

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TeMPOraLover 9 years ago

Worth posting Scott's civil and thoughtful take on this subject:<a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/" rel="nofollow">http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/</a>--And now for my less civil and less thoughtful rant:This is why I think journalism and media is one of the biggest thing that's turning the world to shit. The key observation from the article:> 3. The narrative told by the media in step 2 is considered reality.Every time they lie - and they lie often, regardless whether you want to call it "bias" or "agenda", it's done on purpose; you can't not notice that level of intellectual dishonesty - every time they lie, people believe them. And no, lying in headline and "correcting" it in the middle of the article doesn't cut it, almost nobody reads the damn article. People go on believing what they read, and then they demand changes accordingly, and then they vote accordingly, and stupid policies get instituted and people get hurt.As the good old LW quote goes[0], "Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don't do it to anyone unless you'd also slash their tires." Except in case of media it's really sabotage. It can take your job, your career or your home at a whim. It changes national and international policies.Take Europe and the immigration crisis. You know what's actually the problem there? It's not just immigrants, and it's not just xenophobia. It's media feeding off each other, causing outrage after outrage, overblowing the issue to the point of turning half of otherwise sane people into aggressive xenophobes, and the other half into high-horse riding apologists.I tend to get strange looks when I say there's a problem with media, because Free Media is obviously a Key Element to the Democratic Process (and Democratic = Good). But you know what also is free to do whatever the fuck it wants? Cancer. And it doesn't end well for the host organism. So maybe we need to reevaluate what do we really gain from having this feedback loop running unchecked.I'm not saying, get rid of media. I ask only one thing, I ask it from editors and from journalists: have some fucking integrity. Don't publish blatant lies.And yes, I know that's in a way not your fault, Moloch - "the abstracted spirit of discoordination and flailing response to incentives" - publishes whatever he wants. But if you want to stand up to him, I'm willing to join. I'd be happy to pay for a news source whose primary goal would be to present facts and just facts, the way they are. No spin, no lies, no reporting scientific papers as if they proved the opposite of what they actually do - just the raw truth.--Another thing. It used to be that the best way to filter out lies and propaganda was to run articles through Reddit and/or Hacker News - lots of people with random biases, combined with quite a good chance of there being a person directly involved with the thing described, was usually enough to sanitize the news story. But I'm worried this is slowly stopping to work too. Outrage is exactly what's eating us. I've seen too many times HN jumping to conclusions. Hell, I've personally been guilty of this myself far more than I'm willing to admit. And don't even get me started on Reddit.[0] - <a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/uy/dark_side_epistemology/" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/uy/dark_side_epistemology/</a>

nkozyraover 9 years ago

I don't understand ... The article references the author's tweet, notes it got little traction and then decides it was the source of the stories and speaks for the rest of the people that likely (and more 'successfully') tweeted about it.Some fairly weak logic.

chatmanover 9 years ago

Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" is very similar and an insightful read.

sagoover 9 years ago

I think it is utterly disgusting what the media do to manufacture outrage. They ought to apologise unreservedly. But what can we do about it? A lot! We, as consumers with power, ought to boycott any of them that don't get the message.

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gcatalfamoover 9 years ago

Business insider average titles: this is huge, this is big, this could be a big problem, this is insane, this is awesome, this is awful.. BI is technically...utter garbage...And kind of worrying

kriroover 9 years ago

1) Reverse engineer how/why news sites search the twitter stream2) Craft tweets that are likely to be picked up3) Sit back and enjoy (for extra credit, mail predictions about the news to someone in a sealed envelope)

pistoriuspover 9 years ago

<pre><code> We are the angry mob We read the papers everyday We like who we like, we hate who we hate But we're also easily swayed </code></pre> - Kaiser Chiefs, The angry mob

kmonsenover 9 years ago

Good article, but the name underage red must have been named just to provoke a response.Also, if you get offended by "underage red", maybe your mind is dirty is a bit weird defense. What is the name meant to imply?And finally, if we should be outraged by anything isn't underage red better than war on christmas?

tibiapejagalaover 9 years ago

So it appears that media manufacture outrage for cheap clicks, therefore outrage is not a real problem.I don't follow this line of reasoning. Let's say the same media often create a fake sexism/ism scandal out of something innocent or unrelated. Can we conclude that sexism/ism is not a problem anymore?Aren't safe-spaces real? Is this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QqgNcktbSA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QqgNcktbSA</a> staged? I don't remember things like that from my university years.