Is fear-mongering and fantasizing still effective?
As the media loses readers and profits it becomes increasingly shrill. But is the public becoming more and more immune to the hyperventilating message?
I have often heard it said that the news needs to make us feel bad so that the ads can make us feel good. Life is a trail of misery and despair, but if you buy our new, improved product, everything will be just fine.
“Mexico swine flu death toll jumps to 42″ shouts Reuters in a heading. The death toll has jumped in Mexico from 29 to 42. If it gets to 100, it will have skyrocketed. And there won’t be a word left to describe its ascent if it goes beyond 1,000.
“Despite 2nd US Death, CDC Says Don’t Close Schools for Swine Flu,” WebMD states. Despite the rampant, spiraling death rate of 2, US authorities have urged the public to remain somewhat calm. However, there are plans to close the entire country down for a year if the death rate passes 100.
So what should we believe? Are we being manipulated just one more time by the media into buying some of their news? Or is the media doing its best to inform us of an emerging crisis that could have catastrophic consequences if we don’t respond properly?
On the other side of fear-mongering is fantasizing and irrational exuberance. Have you heard about the new “Google killer” search engine called Wolfram Alpha?
“Wolfram Alpha Does What Google Can’t”, shouts CBS News. According to Christian Science Monitor, in Wolfram Alpha, Google has a “fearsome new challenger.” A BBC heading states that Wolfram Alpha is a “Web tool ‘as important as Google’”.
And you know what? The Wolfram Alpha search engine hasn’t even been officially launched. All of this hype is because a select group of journalists and insiders have been shown a limited demo. And when reviewers actually got a chance to use the search engine itself, the reports were not nearly as revolutionary.
When on earth did anyone in the media accept that being shown a limited, controlled demo was anything other than being played for a fool? Or does it even matter that the news story that results from such barefaced PR manipulation is trivial and sensationalist, once it catches a few more eyeballs?
But do you remember the big media stories that greeted the launch of Google? Yes, they said that Google was going to be the next “Alta Vista killer”. Except that the media didn’t say that. To my knowledge, Google started without much fanfare. I heard about it from a friend. Google grew because it worked, because it was useful.
Amazon, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook: how many of what are today the hottest web brands started off with big media hype, big marketing, advertising and PR campaigns? Not many. Brands have been built on the Web by proving their worth to real people. By being useful to real people.
In an age of customer power, skepticism and cynicism, probably the worst thing Wolfram Alpha can do is engage in traditional PR tactics. It should instead launch quietly and prove its worth. If it’s genuinely useful, word will get around. If it sucks, it will sink. That’s the Web.
Paul Higgins says:
Added on May 11th, 2009 at 10:03 amGood article, but don’t get me started on the media!!
Is fear mongering and fantasizing still effective? YES; how else do the media sell ’stories’? (nb not ‘facts’, but ’stories’!)
In almost every experience I’ve had with ‘the media’, there has been an element of mis-reporting or inaccuracy. The media are not (largely) interested in ‘truth’, they are interested in ’story’, and in selling newspapers (or web space / adverts) with fear mongering and fantasizing (and the dreaded ‘C’ word - “celebrity”). But then, we’re the fools that buy the papers / log onto the websites and read (and believe?) the reports…(or maybe we just buy it / read it for the telly pages and the sport!)…so the media argue that they’re just servicing their customers…and so begins the downward spiral / negative feedback-loop of dumbing down and lowest-common-denominator sensationalist reporting.
What is perhaps most worrying is that many people are wholly unaware of media bias and the way a story can be turned to support the vested interests of the news organisation. I recently had to explain this concept to an experienced teacher who had no idea that what he read in the Daily Blah wasn’t necessarily a truthful or accurate account of events.
Gradually, fact becomes blurred with fiction and hype until eventually people believe that Star Wars is true. Or that endless growth based on re-packaging debt is a sustainable economic model.
As for Wolfram Alpha…well, let’s wait and see…as you say, on the web it will either thrive or die in public. At the end of the day, it’s only a navigational tool to finding relevant content. Google is fundamentally dull, but very effective at finding and delivering less-dull content.