Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Exploration 8

After viewing these sites (dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com and nytimes.com), I found an interesting article called Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/science/good-news-spreads-faster-on-twitter-and-facebook.html?ref=science&_r=0 This article disusses how the negative news on murders, wars, and plagues were once the most talked about and popular news offered. "BAD NEWS SELLS. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news." The article transitions to the question of does more positive news travels farther and faster than negative news in social networks and suggests that maybe people talk about more positve news with face-to-face interactions because they have more positive news than negative news that they experience. To address this question, Dr. Berger researched people on the New York Times website and found some interesting facts.  He found that people visited the Science section more than the nonscience section. He states that these articles "aroused feelings of awe and made Times readers want to share this positive emotion with others." Dr. Berger also found that people preferred to share good news more than bad news. They enjoyed articles that were funny and excitind and that aroused emotions even that of anxietyand anger but not articles that left the reader feeling sad. Also regarding what kind of news spreads the fastest, Dr. Falk found that people spread news on what they felt would intrigue the other person, not necessarily what intrigues them personally. In conclusion, it is not the sad, "bloody" news that leaves you feeling depressed that gets the most coverage all the time. The coverage depends on positive news that does not leave you in an awful state of feeling and news that you feel others want to hear.

1 comment:

  1. ya it is a shame that this is all that is on the news. it actually one reason why i dont watch the news anymore.

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