Thursday 17 August 2017

Quote of the Day: On overexposure to the ‘news cycle’


“Is anything fun, anymore? I reckon that exposure to perpetual outrage is a difficult thing for the human mind to navigate. When that outrage is mixed with scorn, horror and shame, it can be harmful to maintain.
    “As citizens in a republic we should be aware of the very issues eliciting such outrage, scorn, horror and shame.  Awareness helps us to make sense of our world; for each of us to make informed decisions.
    “News or events eliciting these feelings make up our news cycle every day. Exposure to the issues for a half hour each night, or perhaps over a morning newspaper, is probably sufficient for awareness purposes. Exposure to the issues on a 24/7 news cycle is too much. And prolonged exposure to uncensored opinion typically manifesting as bile, is worse.”

    ~ David Wilson, from his post ‘Enjoying the Ride’ at the Footy Almanac

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3 comments:

Dinwar said...

I think this hits on two key points.

First, we don't need this much news. The 24 hour news cycle has destroyed the concept of prioritizing in the news industry. The clash between India and China? That's news. What some celebrity tweeted? Not news. But we've reversed that.

Second, what we have today isn't even news; it's "infotainment", or opinion disguised as news. So not only do we have no sense of perspective in the news, we aren't even watching it to get informed, but rather to be entertained (read, "made to feel angry/scared").

MarkT said...

Hi Peter, it would be great if we were able to share posts like this to Facebook easily (which in turn would bring more visitors to your site). I think we once had that ability but it seems to have been lost. At the moment if you click on your 'Share' button you get a link to the article, but the text and graphic that appear in Facebook have nothing to do with the post - meaning most would be unlikely to take it further.

Peter Cresswell said...

Hi Mark
I agree with you. But I've tried several gadgets, widgets and bits of code -- and tried a few more this morning -- and the Blogger vehicle doesn't seem to support any way to get any other text and graphics except by the sharer doing so manually. Which is incredibly frustrating.
Not to say however that there IS no way to change the button's functioning; perhaps it's just that I haven't found it yet ...