Effects
The Salvadoran Civil War, largely a peasant revolution, took place 1980–92. The USA supported the right-wing government. During the war 75,000 people were killed, 8,000 more went missing and another million exiled. On 17 March 1980, the village of Ingenio Colima was attacked by paramilitaries who murdered all its occupants. At the time, the country’s media gave a biased account of what took place. The intention today – in the face of open hostility from today’s political leaders is to investigate and clarify what happened and to contribute to a national process of truth and reconciliation. See www.waccglobal.org]]
The emotional effects of war journalism also make it more difficult for audiences to be aware of this biased presentation of conflict. War journalism takes advantage of the emotional “high” humans can get from fear through evolutionary psychological mechanisms. In a similar way, war journalism appeals to "lower order" needs for security and belonging. The pre-frontal cortex, governing working memory, rational attentive functioning, and complex thought is inhibited by activation of the brain’s fear centre, the limbic system.
Audiences are thus deprived of cognitive resources with which to recognize the role of fear in encouraging war journalism consumption. This cognitive deprivation also further fixes meaning and increases the role of “automatically activated attitudes” which according to cognitive psychology: "guide attention toward attitude-consistent information, provide a template with which to interpret ambiguous information, and…guide behaviour in a relatively spontaneous fashion". Therefore viewers are primed to pay more attention to future information, which is consistent with the automatically activated attitudes formed by war journalism. Research into the ever present framing in the media supports this conclusion: “Certainly people can recall their own facts, forge linkages not made explicitly in the text, or retrieve from memory a causal explanation or cure that is completely absent from the text. In essence, this is just what professors encourage their students to do habitually. But Zaller (1992), Kahneman and Tversky (1984), and Iyengar (1991), among others, suggest that on most matters of social or political interest, people are not generally so well-informed and cognitively active, and that framing therefore heavily influences their responses to communications”.
Research shows that war journalism can have negative emotional impacts on audience members. These include feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, compounded by increased anxiety, mood disturbance, sadness and a sense of disconnection with physical and social environments. Research by Galtung and Ruge (1965) finds negativity bias in foreign news. This has also been confirmed more recently by Nohrstedt and Ottosen (2008). This can affect reactions towards the conflict itself, and an audience’s general psychological wellbeing, which biasses their view of the world as excessively chaotic and may cause serious anxiety and emotional difficulties, and a sense of disempowerment and disconnection. Vicarious trauma can increase these negative effects, where "even ‘normal’, intelligent, educated individuals can become highly suggestible towards violent acts in formerly unexpected contexts".
These negative emotional states may discourage audience members from criticism and challenge of the biassed information presented through war journalism. These public concerns may appear to be "someone else’s problem" and best left to "experts", who alone have the necessary knowledge, time, and emotional endurance. These negative emotional responses may also discourage creative engagement with the conflict and conflict parties. This is especially troubling considering the critical role of creativity in conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
Read more about this topic: Peace Journalism
Famous quotes containing the word effects:
“Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider’d as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of thought to pass from cause to effects and effects to causes, according to their experienc’d union.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“One of the effects of a safe and civilised life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Corporate America will likely be motivated to support child care when it can be shown to have positive effects on that which management is concerned about—recruitment, retention and productivity. Indeed, employers relate to child care as a way to provide growth fostering environments for young managers.”
—Dana E. Friedman (20th century)