Sensational Stories Research Articles

Unveiling Practical Insights: An Assessment of Media Influence on Tertiary Students' Perceptions of Crime and Criminals in Jigawa State

This study examines the influence of media on tertiary students' perceptions of crime and criminals in Jigawa State, Nigeria. With the rise in media consumption, particularly of crime-related content, there is growing concern about its potential to distort reality and elevate fear of crime among young adults. Utilizing Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory as a framework, this research explores how different media types impact students' understanding of crime, including television, social media, and news outlets. A mixed-method approach was used, combining surveys and focus group discussions with students across various institutions. The results indicate a significant correlation between high media consumption and exaggerated crime perception. Findings further reveal that students frequently exposed to sensational crime stories report heightened fear and misconceptions about criminal activity. These insights underscore the need for media literacy programs and balanced crime reporting to mitigate the influence of media on students' perceptions of crime.

Epidemic in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: News media framing of the MMR vaccination controversy in Serbia

Rising vaccine hesitancy is often related to negative vaccination media coverage. It is generally accepted that the media played a great role in spreading the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) childhood vaccination scare first in the UK and then worldwide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the MMR vaccination rate dropped further in some countries. This paper examines the Serbian news media framing of the MMR vaccination controversy in the period 2019–2023 (periods of declining MMR vaccination rate, rising COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and the 2023 measles outbreaks). Furthermore, the paper questions whether the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the MMR vaccine narrative in the newspapers. For this reason, quality content analysis of the press in combination with framing approaches (diagnostic–prognostic–motivational framing tasks and responsibility framing) were used. In total, 122 articles dealing with the MMR vaccine and measles epidemics were analysed. According to the press, the most significant cause of the declining MMR rate is anti-vaccination campaigns and conspiracy theories by the “anti-vax lobby” (diagnostic frames). The pandemic was the other significant cause for the intake drop. Achieving herd immunity through vaccine uptake is offered as the best solution (prognostic frames). Finally, MMR vaccination campaigns and penalties for non-compliant parents and vaccine refusers are proposed as calls to action (motivational frames). During this period, the press did not publish any “sensational anti-vax stories”. Considering the low MMR vaccine numbers in Serbia in this period, positive media messages did not have a significant influence on improving the vaccination rate. Thus, I suggest that Serbian parents distrust vaccination information presented by the dominant news, including the advice of health experts.

The Popular Ballad, Rumours and Memories as a Special Narrative Format

In principle, the new folksongs or folk ballads of the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century telling about dramatic events could also be called versified media news, as their aim was to mediate topical shocking events, in particular accidents or murders, thus serving as rumours, news and entertainment all in one. The popular ballad ‘Saatuse vangis’ (‘Bound by Fate’) tells a sensational story from southern Estonia. The song spread together with hearsay concerning the central event, the circumstances of the making of the song, and the characters involved. Over time, a specific type of story-telling developed, that mingled prose with parts of the song. The ballad together with the pertaining lore allows us to view the events descried from different aspects, creating a broader picture of the development and meaning of a popular text. The rumours, comments and personal memories accompanying the song helped both the contemporary and subsequent generations to understand and interpret the event. The stories spreading in the community by word of mouth addressed various circumstances “beyond the song”, and the narrator’s own emotions and opinions on the matter.

Sensational stories: The role of narrative characteristics in distinguishing real and fake news and predicting their spread

Media content – whether real or fake – is often presented in a story format. While research has examined some of the linguistic differences between real and fake news articles, less attention has been given to the ways in which they vary in terms of their narrativity. The current work leverages text analysis to build on recent work in the consumer field examining narrativity in predicting messages’ persuasiveness. We conduct three studies in the context of real and fake news to examine how they differ in terms of their narrative content and discourse features. We further examine how variation in narrativity predicts the likelihood that the article is shared on social media, an outcome of importance to marketers and persuasion agents.

Narcissistic susceptibility to conspiracy beliefs exaggerated by education, reduced by cognitive reflection.

Conspiracy theories are alternate viewpoints of provided explanations; sensational stories revolving around small groups exerting control for nefarious reasons. Recent events and research have outlined myriad negative social and personal outcomes for those who endorse them. Prior research suggests several predictors of susceptibility to conspiracy theories, including narcissistic personality traits (grandiosity, need for uniqueness), cognitive processes (critical thinking, confirmation bias) and lack of education. The aim of the current paper was to explore how facets of narcissism predict susceptibility to conspiracy theories. It was expected that narcissism would be a positive predictor, but education and cognitive reflection would act as protective factors, reducing this effect. Study one utilized an international survey (N = 323) to investigate the role of education as a protective tool in the relationship between narcissistic traits and conspiratorial beliefs. Support was found for the hypotheses that individuals with higher levels of grandiosity, vulnerable narcissism, a strive for uniqueness, and a strive for supremacy predicted higher levels of conspiracy endorsement. Higher education and STEM education were associated with lower levels of conspiracy endorsement, however all significant moderations indicated that for narcissistic individuals, education increased their likelihood of adopting conspiracy beliefs, contrary to expectation. To investigate this further, study two analyzed a large-scale publicly available dataset (N = 51,404) to assess the relationship between narcissism, critical thinking skills (specifically cognitive reflection) and conspiracy beliefs pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, analysis found narcissism and poor cognitive reflection (intuitive thinking) as predictors of conspiracy beliefs. Higher levels of cognitive reflection were found to be protective, moderating and reducing the impact of narcissism on endorsement of conspiracy theories. The findings suggest that cognitive reflection, but not education protect against narcissistic conspiracy belief. Moreover, that cognitive reflection may have a lessened effect against conspiracy theories adopted for social or ideological reasons. These findings improve understanding of both the role and limitations of education/critical thinking skills as protective factors against conspiracy theory endorsement.

The Revealed Demand for Hard vs. Soft News: Evidence from Italian TV Viewership

We analyze minute-by-minute, individual level data on viewership for Italian TV news broadcasts (from AUDITELTM), matched with detailed data on content (from Osservatorio di Pavia). We are interested in the behavior of viewers, and in particular in their decision to switch away from a news program as a function of the type of story they are currently watching. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that “soft” news systematically induces viewers to switch away, even more than “hard” news. On the other hand, sensational stories about crime, accidents and disasters are associated with less switching. We also find significant differences in this switching behavior according to gender, age, and the specific TV channel being watched. For example, young people are relatively more likely to switch away from hard news than soft news, compared to older people. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Media Reportage of Agricultural Development in Africa

Agricultural development news is believed to have a positive impact on the lives of all or majority of the people that are exposed to it. This belief has generated so many controversies that led scholars to seriously canvass for its use. However, agricultural development news reportage in the media is given a paucity of reports as compared to sensational and political news stories. Agricultural development stories even when they are reported are not critically reported and analyzed for the betterment of the target audience to which the news is intended. Specific kinds of information which satisfy the needs and wants of the people can contribute to the economic and social progress of a country. The need to examine media reportage on agricultural development, therefore, stimulates the interest of this chapter. The media being the watchdog of the society as described by Lasswell had the responsibility of informing the citizens on issues of national interest and agricultural development from time to time. Within this context, information is needed to exploit opportunities in time and raise the awareness level about the potential opportunities for agriculture in Africa.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s and Dion Boucicault’s Sensational Re-writings across Media:The Octoroon

This article seeks to add to the conversation around transmedia practices in Victorian culture and to suggest that sensation, a particular type of storytelling that sought to affect its audiences physically and emotionally with its extreme events in contemporary settings, was significant to the development of transmedia practices in the ease with which sensationalists moved their stories across boundaries and the highly self-reflexive way in which they did so. Whilst contemporary reviewers expressed anxiety about the fractured and multiple means by which sensation could be consumed, sensation writers like novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon and playwright Dion Boucicault highlighted their sensational productions as transmedia, often in the face of critical opprobrium. Examining both writers’ versions of The Octoroon (1861–2), a story about racial inequality set in antebellum Louisiana, we can see how offering readers and audiences sensational stories that continued, expanded or re-told other sensational stories kept Victorian consumers coming back for more. Sensation, this article suggests, was at the forefront of stimulating its audiences in new ways: bodily, intellectually, and emotionally, and that the transmedia connectedness of sensationalists’ work increased their capacity to create new sensations.

“She Loves Nothing but Her Art”: Vibrant Marble and the Agency of the Female Artist in Louisa May Alcott’s “A Marble Woman, or The Mysterious Model”

At first glance, “A Marble Woman” (1865) seems to offer but a trite marriage plot, assuaging Louisa May Alcott’s contemporary readers while containing the heroine’s scandalous abilities. On a second and read through a new materialist critical lens, it becomes apparent how cunningly the female sculptor Cecil negotiates her creativity with the societal demands on the true woman and the marriage doctrine of her time. The sensational story’s twist reveals the female protagonist’s masterful manipulation of her guardian-husband Yorke who was, just as the reader, under the assumption that he was the one molding her to his needs. The protagonist’s true artistry, we realize, is not static sculpture but vibrant performance which renders her simultaneously as woman and marble, artist and an artwork.

Maria Reutt — nieidentyczna z autorką dobrych powieści dla młodzieży żeńskiej

The aim of the article is to attempt to present the silhouette of Maria Reutt née Stabrowska (born in 1888?), a literary collaborator of leading high-circulation press concerns of the interwar period, mistakenly taken for highly-esteemed Vilnius author for children and youth, educator and educational activist Maria Jadwiga Reuttówna (1863/1867–1942). The sensational and romance stories of Maria Reutt, categorized as third-rate literature, were able to “chain” and “tether” the interest of readers of the magazines from the Illustrated Daily Courier group (Na Szerokim Świecie and Tempo Dnia) and Alfred Krzycki Publishing House in Żnin (Pałuczanin, Moje Powieści). They entered the book circulation extremely rarely, and yet at least one of them managed to become a reading banned for adolescent girls. The writer’s work was presented in the context of an attempt to reconstruct her biography.

Neither Absent nor Ambient: Incidental News Exposure From the Perspective of News Avoiders in the UK, United States, and Spain

Scholars have long argued that incidental news exposure (INE) is a potentially valuable way citizens gain political information and learn about current affairs. Yet growing scholarship on news avoidance suggests many people still manage to consume little news, and algorithmic curation may decrease the likelihood that they will be exposed to it incidentally. In this article, we put the literatures on INE, news avoidance, and political talk into dialogue with one another. Then, by inductively analyzing over a hundred in-depth interviews conducted from 2016 to 2020 with news avoiders in the UK, Spain, and the United States, we explore how they encounter news incidentally and to what extent they feel the news is accessible and available to them. Our audience-centric approach highlights that interviewees often did not make a clear distinction between direct encounters with professional news (“firsthand news”) and discussions of news (“secondhand news”), especially online. When they did make a distinction, the latter was often more salient for them. We also find that just as news consumers have repertoires of news sources on which they habitually rely, news avoiders have repertoires of sources for incidental exposure to news to stay informed about major events and anything that might affect them directly. And yet, those repertoires catch only the biggest and most sensational stories of the day and do little to help them contextualize or understand the news they encounter, contributing to their sense that news is neither entirely absent nor ambient in the way scholars have theorized.

“We keep the nightmares in their cages”: Correctional culture, identity, and the warped badge of honor*

AbstractCorrectional scholarship has demonstrated concern over the dehumanizing implications of the carceral state for incarcerated people. This concern has been paralleled by an interest in understanding the work of prison staff and how correctional subculture may play an active role in prison dehumanization. By drawing from focus groups from all prisons in one state, we investigate how correctional staff construct and manage their identity through “us–them” ideologies. We find that staff leverage negative attitudes toward the incarcerated, and that these attitudes were underpinned by sensational cultural stories and epithets. Moreover, we find that staff use “othering” toward the incarcerated as a means to construct a warped badge of honor, which illustrates the burdens they bear from prison work and which frames themselves as heroes, guardians, and protectors. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings, where we consider how dehumanization illustrates the mental coping work staff endure to carry out the symbolic violence and dehumanizing objectives of the carceral system.

‘The God of Small Things’: A Narrative of Catastrophic Misogynistic Approach

Arundhati Roy is one of the most noted Indian novelist, essayist and activist who mainly stresses on issues related to social justice and economic inequalities. She is the writer who has created ripples round the globe by her gripping write-ups. She has been rightly awarded and bestowed with honour for her daring effort. She stands as the most controversial author amongst the clutch of contemporary Indo-Anglian writers. My simple reason for choosing her work is that I vehemently feel the contemporary critics have failed in bringing forth her true identity as a sensitive writer. She is not a traitor but a ‘world denizen with humane concern’. Her novel ‘The God of Small Things’ has harboured huge worldwide literary attention for its unique writing style and sensational story line. It is acknowledged as a complex and diverse piece of writing that incorporates varied themes such as marriage, divorce, abuse, death, alienation, gender issue, class division and political and religious conflict. The present paper deals with the kaleidoscopic inter play of relationships in the male chauvinistic society, highlighting the dominant role of elderly women whose guidance and stringent norms ruin the life of the younger female generation. The story takes the readers in its stride and enwraps them in its roller coaster ride until breathless.

Gender Relations in Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches and “Behind a Mask”

This article explores gender relations in Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches (1863) alongside her sensational thriller “Behind a Mask: or, A Woman’s Power” (1866). During the mid-1860s Alcott authored a series of sensational stories and novellas portraying dynamic and sensationalist power struggles between male and female characters. Such conflicting gender dynamics, however, drastically change in Hospital Sketches, a fictionalized account of Alcott’s real-life experiences as a nurse during the Civil war. Despite having been written during the same period as her sensational fiction, the power struggle between masculinity and femininity in these sketches is drastically neutralized within the context of wartime conflict. This article examines the ways in which Alcott contrastingly employs melodramatic techniques to establish male-female relationships in these two texts. Both texts uniquely portray Alcott’s feminist ideals; femininity triumphs over masculinity in “Behind a Mask,” whereas femininity and masculinity are both embraced and transgressed in Hospital Sketches.

‘MAKING THE PAPER COME ALIVE’: Entertainment, Emotion, and Newspaper Reading Groups in the People’s Republic of China (1951–1955)

This paper investigates ‘newspaper reading groups’ (dubaozu) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1951–1955, and how these groups reflected the daily practice, possibilities, and limits of a particular news culture in China under high socialism. As local newspaper reading group leaders translated national and provincial news into locally intelligible form, they were encouraged to combat boredom among audiences by choosing sensational news stories and transmitting this news in an entertaining fashion, adding music, song, and storytelling methods to embellish the ‘dead’ text of the newspaper at hand. By researching the particular methods of the newspaper reading group, this paper revisits the role of emotion in creating political meaning among audiences in what has been deemed one of the most propaganda-oriented societies of the twentieth century, encouraging a reassessment of how propaganda systems function not only in Chinese contexts but also among low-literacy communities the world over.

The Revealed Demand for Hard vs. Soft News: Evidence from Italian TV Viewership

We analyze minute-by-minute, individual level data on viewership for Italian TV news broadcasts (from AUDITEL™), matched with detailed data on content (from Osservatorio di Pavia). We are interested in the behavior of viewers, and in particular in their decision to switch away from a news program as a function of the type of story they are currently watching. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that “soft” news systematically induces viewers to switch away, even more than “hard” news. On the other hand, sensational stories about crime, accidents and disasters are associated with less switching. We also find significant differences in this switching behavior according to gender, age, and the specific TV channel being watched. For example, young people are relatively more likely to switch away from hard news than soft news, compared to older people.

Salome

Salome

An Opera Singer’s Gothic Fiction: The Autobiographies of Sims Reeves

ABSTRACTMale opera singers occupied a problematic place in nineteenth-century Britain, where music was often perceived as a feminized and foreign pursuit, and not a respectable profession. It therefore became imperative for British singers to find ways in which to assert their masculinity, their Britishness, and their respectability. The autobiography offered them an ideal opportunity. The British tenor Sims Reeves (1821–1900) left two memoires, the first of which is especially unusual. While some sections of the volume conform to a conventional autobiographical style, the majority of its chapters could more accurately be defined as gothic fiction, containing a number of sensational short stories that are mostly set in the world of music. These stories function as an attempt to negotiate their author’s problematic identity. While some offer a coded defense against contemporary accusations of greed and alcoholism, others present opera as a respectable profession.

Naloxone urban legends and the opioid crisis: what is the role of public health?

As the overdose crisis in North America continues to deepen, public health leaders find themselves responding to sensational media stories, many of which carry forms and themes that mark them as urban legends.This article analyzes one set of media accounts – stories of misuse of naloxone, an opioid overdose antidote distributed to people who use drugs – through the lens of social science scholarship on urban legends. We suggest that these stories have met a public need to feel a sense of safety in uncertain times, but function to reinforce societal views of people who use drugs as undeserving of support and resources.Our field has a duty to speak out in favour of evidence-based programs that support the health of people who use drugs, but the optimal communication strategies are not always clear. Drawing attention to the functions and consequences of urban legends can help frame public health communication in a way that responds to needs without reinforcing prejudices, with application beyond naloxone to the other urban legends that continue to emerge in response to this crisis.

From sensation to stigma: Changing standards for suicide coverage in US journalism textbooks, 1894–2016

Suicide has long been a major category of news, but conceptions of newsworthiness and ethical approaches to coverage of suicide have changed dramatically over the past century. This interpretive textual analysis of journalism textbooks published from 1894 to 2016 traces how discourse on suicide coverage shifted with professional practice and social conceptions over the 20th century. Suicide was a popular genre of sensational human-interest story featured in early journalism textbooks, but many contemporary texts barely acknowledge suicide, portraying it as a generally private matter requiring characteristics of prominence, impact, or unusualness to make news. Findings suggest that the discursive pendulum has swung too far from the exploitative coverage promoted at the turn of the 20th century to the present-day marginalization of a significant social and public health issue.