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Neither agree nor disagree Yes and no. Objective well-being conditions are not directly affected but subjective well-being (SWB) is likely affected by negative news of all sorts, which can have downstream effects. It also depends on the framing and frequency. We can get desensitized (or adapt) to particular types of news. This adaptation reduces the impact of one particular story on SWB, but may lead to a longer-term negative world view, negatively affecting hope, and through hope, numerous life outcomes. The size of such a channel is highly speculative. Second, knowing the scale of suffering in other places may help put our own life into perspective, and allow us to better psychologically manage challenges. Overall, current SWB (in not-distant countries) is not the only thing that we care about. It may be worth sacrificing a little current SWB to provide more complete information, which could in turn affect our perspectives and the lives of others, both our future selves and 'people in distant countries'.
Doctor Kelsey J O'Connor
Researcher in the Economics of Well-being -
Completely agree We know that the poverty of others lowers wellbeing for Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. But many happiness measures do not reflect this including Gallup World poll that did not fall during the Great Recession
Professor David Blanchflower
Professor of Economics at Dartmouth -
Completely agree We published a paper recently in PLOS ONE, which confirmed that for countries not directly involved in the invasion of Ukraine, well-being was negatively affected. First, countries were negatively impacted because they expressed sadness and sympathy for the Ukrainian people's plight. Second, as time passed, our countries were negatively impacted because of the economic spillover effects in the form of higher inflation, gas prices and so on.
Professor Stephanié Rossouw
Associate Professor, School for Social Science and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand -
Neither agree nor disagree "Wellbeing" interpreted (or measured) in the most likely way, is somewhat present-biased, i.e., short-term focused. Therefore sad news is likely to decrease wellbeing, even if there are some competing impacts from empathy effects versus standard-setting effects.
Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Associate Professor, McGill University -
Agree I am unaware of any papers focusing on this specific issue but there is a wide literature showing that people's wellbeing is affected by the wellbeing of others, and that this is linked to the mental or social availability of the suffering. The neuroscience literature on the role of mirror neurons is relevant here. I would have a high degree of confidence that, if a good natural experiment could be identified it would confirm the statement proposed.
Professor Conal Smith
Senior Associate at Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington -
Neither agree nor disagree I have not seen research in relation to this question. However, I expect that the effects are highly place-specific and context-specific. I doubt that the wellbeing of many people in the "allied countries" was affected negatively by the bombing of Dresden or even of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whereas they would have been affected by the bombing of London (even if they were not living there). I expect that similar dichotomies exist in today's major conflicts - e.g. Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Myanmar, ... Beyond the calamities of war, the reaction to earthquakes in places with which we may identify personally varies enormously compared with places that have a distinctly different culture. Hence we may see headlines such as the infamous "Small Earthquake in Chile, Not many dead" (though this headline never actually appeared).
Professor Arthur Grimes
Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington -
Disagree I am afraid that this tragic event (mass suffering in distant countries) has a wellbeing impact that does not work in simple ways. The relation is complex; following Alesina et al. (2004), who show that the impact of inequality on happiness varies across people, I would hypothesize that the happiness impact of mass suffering in distant countries depends on many attributes that vary across people; for example: 1. How much concerned people are about what happens in the rest of the world (some people do not even take a look at what is happening abroad) 2. How much of these tragic events is presented in the media (in some countries local news consume all of the media time) 3. What media people watch. Sometimes it seems that we live in two different worlds, depending on what media outlet we watch. 4. How the media presents the event. The simplified view of good boys (us) vs. bad boys (them) may influence how people process the tragic event. 5. The attention people put in the event. We are constantly bombarded with new information and new events, so that people's attention quickly switches to other events -it is humanly impossible to focus on everything-. In consequence, I would say that the happiness of some people may decline; in specific, the happiness of those who are concerned about the event, who process it as something terrible, who watch and keep watching the media that is emphasizing the event, and who focus on that event. However, for the rest of people I would not expect that this tragic events would negatively affect their wellbeing.
Professor Mariano Rojas
Professor of Economics, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla -
Neither agree nor disagree There are two countervailing forces: empathy with those suffering and social comparisons that reflect well on our own lives. The net impact is likely to vary greatly between individuals. Some would feel the suffering of the people in distant countries and suffer with them. Others may come to see their lives more positively through comparison with the lives of the people suffering in distant countries. In both cases, though, research by Kahneman and others suggests that the number of people suffering is unlikely to have much impact. More important to emotional impact is the vividness of the suffering, which is often better communicated by focusing on the suffering of particular individuals.
Professor Guy Mayraz
Lecturer, University of Sydney -
Neither agree nor disagree Bad new about suffering of distant people may reduce our own life-satisfaction a bit on the short run but is likely to add to our life-satisfaction in the long-term, since it presses for policies to avoid that the same happens to us. The 'distant people' will typically profit from the bad news about them, both in the short and the long-term
Professor Ruut Veenhoven
Professor of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam -
Agree Making suffering in distant countries more salient makes our own people feel worse, which by itself makes our own people worse off. That is not to say it is a bad thing to report on the suffering of others! On the contrary, world well-being may be increased if the reporting spurs action to alleviate the suffering.
Professor Daniel Benjamin
Associate Professor of Economics, University of Southern California -
Neither agree nor disagree Although the effect diverges across people, on average people seem to be negatively affected by the suffering of others (even if distant). In addition, it seems that people get addicted to these news, once they start watching. On average however it seems that people get used to the mass suffering elsewhere and eventually the negative impact evades; until a new tragedy comes in the media. It seems that many of us suffer from psychic numbing, which means that our empathy decreases as the number of victims in a tragedy increases (or the probability of the event to occur again decreases).
Professor Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Professor of Economics, IAE-CSIC -
Agree Human beings possess a natural capacity for empathy, and exposure to suffering, even from distant sources, can evoke empathetic responses. This can trigger feelings of moral responsibility or a desire to help alleviate the pain and suffering of others, even among individuals who are geographically distant from the affected areas. In the context of media globalization, where information flows seamlessly across borders, individuals worldwide can feel interconnected with those experiencing mass suffering in distant countries. However, the inability to provide direct assistance or solutions can intensify the negative impact of media coverage on individuals' wellbeing. Additionally, too much information each day about mass suffering in distant countries can lead to compassion fatigue, individuals becoming emotionally overwhelmed or desensitized to the suffering of others. Despite their empathetic responses, individuals may feel overwhelmed, helpless, or distressed by the magnitude of the suffering portrayed in the media, exacerbating feelings of compassion fatigue and contributing negatively to their wellbeing.
Professor Daniela Andrén
Senior Lecturer, Örebro University School of Business -
Completely agree I think that it is safe to say that the empirical evidence supports this claim. For example, terrorist attacks in certain countries have been shown to have negative spillovers on the wellbeing of populations in other, distant countries, cf. Metcalfe et al. (2011, Economic Journal) for spillovers from the US to the UK, and so have natural disasters, cf. Goebel et al. (2015, Journal of Population Economics) for spillovers from Japan to Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. In theory, the media are an important mechanism (though I am not sure that media exposure has been shown to be a causal mediator yet), and graphical depictions of suffering (as opposed to neutral information) should clearly intensify spillovers.
Professor Christian Krekel
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics -
Agree Images and stories about the suffering of others provokes negative emotion in most people. So when I agree that it "negatively affects our own wellbeing" -- I mean it in this sense. It does not make people feel good. The war in Ukraine and in Gaza are upsetting to many people. Most people want to feel like the world is generally a safe place and that only unjust people suffer. But these situations threaten that assumption.
Professor William Tov
Associate Professor of Psychology at Singapore Management University -
Agree This is essentially about an empathic response to seeing the suffering of others. We are group animals and get upset at seeing others in anguish, even if they are quite different to us (https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2013.763852). The operative phrase is the prominence of the suffering in the media: we react to what we see and hear. Constant exposure to negative images mean constant moments of negative effect, which has been found to reduce life satisfaction (Diener, Sandvik, and Pavot, 2009). In my own research (Mervin and Frijters, 2014, SocSciMed) we found that this empathic effect of being around suffering was much stronger in women than men.
Professor Paul Frijters
Professorial Research Fellow, CEP Wellbeing Programme, London School of Economics -
Neither agree nor disagree It depends on what causes of the suffering. If the cause is natural, like an earthquake, certainly, this is beyond human control, and one wants to assist as much as possible to alleviate the suffering the concerned people, through donations of tangible and consumable resources, volunteering, and other altruistic means. This is in line with maximising benefits to the afflicted persons in the concerned countries and seeking to minimise their pain. At the aggregate level, these augment the welfare of the suffering society, of humanity and of the givers. The loss of utility to the giving entities or countries far outweighs the gain in utility to the recipient nations, so much so that this tantamounts to outward shift in global community welfare function. Very often, suffering is caused by bad leadership, corruption, poor governance and invasion of a country, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or a conflict situation (Israel- Gaza) and other political factors. Politicians in many African countries often squander resources meant for economic development, through corruption, greed, kleptocracy, and repression of opposition, or rights of people, to stay in power, leaving the poor with limited capabilities for advancement (Easterly, 2021). As human beings, we feel for others in a situation of unjustified or unprovoked invasion, as it causes lots of sufferings to innocent people. The displacement of children, women and families, like the case of Ukrainians, to other countries and the fight for liberty and democracy cause lots of anguish, when exposed and amplified in the media. Evidently, these would negatively affect our well-being of normal citizens, but paradoxically such acts of aggression may copiously feed the ego of the 'rotten leaders', thereby enhancing their own selfish happiness. This detracts from the happiness of other citizens who have a deep sense of morality and of doing good for mankind. In the globalised environment, news travel fast. But at times, while the press and media can be objective and neutral, social media can be distorting, biasing the views of the wrongful doers. One needs press freedom to expose the sufferings of the people in an inter-connected world, and also to take remedial measures.
Professor Darma Mahadea
Associate Professor and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa -
Agree The mass suffering of people affects our well-being all the more negatively the closer the people are to us, the more vivid the information is, and the more avoidable the suffering was. The negative effect is transitory, and habituation may occur. But in the long term, this news may alter our beliefs, mood and preferences, such as our locus of control, general trust, time preference, with negative effects on well-being.
Professor Maurizio Pugno
Full Professor of Economics, University of Cassino -
Neither agree nor disagree Whether our wellbeing is affected by relating to people suffering in distant countries would be a function of: the personality of the person doing the relating (e.g. neurotic individuals could be expected to be more concerned/less happy); personal affiliation(s) or identity to the 'suffering' group (e.g. Palestinians in another country could be expected to be more concerned/less happy due to the suffering of fellow Palestinians in Gaza, or, those with an anti-Russian political perspective could be expected to show more concern/ lower happiness due to the suffering of Ukrainians), or; those with a higher level of consideration for human rights could be expected to show more concern/ lower happiness due to the suffering of other individuals.
Doctor Tony Beatton
Visiting Fellow, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) -
Neither agree nor disagree It Depends. The media plays a fundamental role in the transmission of information. If there are people in remote places who are experiencing great suffering and the press shows it correctly, this indeed could affect our well-being. For some citizens, their feeling of benevolence (the feeling that we contribute to building a better world) may be affected. Benevolence has been conceptualized as a psychological need that has two poles: first, the satisfaction of that need. Second, the frustration of it. Therefore, the well-being of those people who feel low sensation and/or high frustration of their benevolence will see their well-being diminished since they will feel that they are incapable of alleviating the suffering of people, even if they do not know them personally. In addition, the feeling of well-being may also be dimmish in those people with high levels of empathy and compassion when they perceive an inability to alleviate the suffering of those who are shown in the press. Importantly however, well-being may not change in those whose levels of benevolence, empathy and compassion are not affected when see the suffering in others.
Professor Wenceslao Unanue
Assistant Professor, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
World Wellbeing Panel
If it bleeds, it leads. But should it?
In February 2024, we asked the expert wellbeing panel members about the impact of negative news and whether there should be more positive news.
Panelists responded to two statements, as follows:
Mass suffering of people in distant countries negatively affects our own wellbeing when it is reported prominently in the media.
Public broadcasters should put more attention on positive/happy news stories to improve national wellbeing.
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Agree It's not that broadcasters should put more emphasis on positive news, but they should reduce the negativity bias that has become more and more pronounced over time, especially among major outlets in the United States (sourced below). This bias deeply affects people's perceptions of the world they live in and the opportunity to cope with challenges, local and global. The more people fear, the more they try to protect themselves, often leading to private consumption and prejudice, which is good for the economy but not the environment nor democracy. We need a more fair and balanced view per se and because this will reduce the forces tearing us apart, for instance, polarization and prejudice... We need to bring people together to face the challenges of today. The political and environmental challenges are manmade and reversible with cooperative public action. See the transcript of the podcast: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-u-s-media-so-negative-replay/, and the sources within.
Doctor Kelsey J O'Connor
Researcher in the Economics of Well-being -
Neither agree nor disagree We have no evidence for this
Professor David Blanchflower
Professor of Economics at Dartmouth -
Completely agree Similarly to my previous answer, using Big Data, we determined that during times of shock (invasion of a nation or lockdown), there is an increase in negative emotions (fear, disgust, anger and sadness); however, joy co-occurs alongside the negative emotions during these shocks. Therefore, positive emotions do not disappear during stress and shocks, and we argue this could mitigate the negative impact of shocks.
Professor Stephanié Rossouw
Associate Professor, School for Social Science and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand -
Agree Elon Musk says his X service is intended to become the "most reliable source of truth" on the planet. But truth is not the only criterion for a successful town square. The object of attention is equally important. (Similarly, economists like to claim their discipline is objective (or has a "positive" component), but this misses out on the overwhelmingly subjective choice of what to study, what to focus on, what questions to ask.) Thus, part of the job of any traditional news source, but especially of public broadcasters, is to choose a balance of news topics. Nowadays, with every bit of attention separately monetarily marginalized, and news items not tied together on a broadsheet, this role has diminished. When competing with corporate and online media, or playing to social media algorithms, public and private broadcasters have the incentive to report on what will command attention, rather than what is important for the audience to know about for the long-run interest of society. I do think it is important to be fed a balance of positive/happy news, and to have a constructive/positive view of the future, and the news does tend to under-represent the millions of good things that go on daily. For this reason, my answer is yes. People tend to think crime and honesty are worse than reality, and that could be addressed through balance of news. However, the long-run interests of a society are one main reason we need to know about the desperation of others. Of course, our interest in overseas plights relates to self interest (for our country), to the degree to which we (our country) may be able to effect change to solve a given problem (looking after and making friends makes us happier), and to clannish familiarity and proximity -- ie ethnicity etc. Hence, much Ukraine and little Tigray/etc from many Western news sources. A critical part of states in which foreign policy is accountable to the electorate is that there is sufficient awareness of what is going on around the world. Without that, long-run wellbeing is put at risk by ignoring looming problems. There are very few journalistic organizations which have the freedom to choose their foci responsibly in this sense, and they're not necessarily the public broadcasters. The Economist, Al Jazeera, BBC, etc have different funding arrangements, but have stable enough support that they can pursue humanist agenda. .
Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Associate Professor, McGill University -
Completely disagree I strongly agree that public broadcasters should put more attention on positive news. We are inclined to focus on negative risks and the media reflects this resulting in a picture of the world that is often more negative than is, in fact, warranted by the facts. In addition, people are often motivated by positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement (Kahneman, D., 2011, Thinking Fast and Slow, Macmillan). Hence over reporting of negative news about issues such as global warming runs the risk of discouraging people from taking action. However, I very strongly disagree with the idea that public broadcasters should place more attention on positive stories to raise wellbeing. The purpose of focusing on positive stories matters a lot.
Professor Conal Smith
Senior Associate at Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington -
Disagree Public broadcasters need to make their own decisions as to content. Sometimes bad news stories will proliferate (because of the prevalence of bad news), while at other times good news stories will do so (e.g. around Christmas time). Interference with public broadcasters' news choices can be a dangerous threat to a free press and democracy.
Professor Arthur Grimes
Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington -
Agree I agree with the first part of the statement, but not with the second part. I think that public broadcasters should put more attention on positive/happy news stories because there are many of these stories in the world, and because it is good for informed citizens to, at least, have the opportunity of being informed about them. There is clearly a media bias in favor of shocking and negative stories; which easily attract the attention of most people. However, we must also recognize that some groups -like teenagers- are really looking for watching some 'funny moments' -like short videos in the media-, or some adults are looking for romantic news or celebrity news to scape from the anxiety associated to their work. By presenting the good or positive stories, the media could contribute to having well-informed citizens who can take better decisions. I would not agree with the second part of the statement; this is: I do not think that positive news stories should be presented to improve national wellbeing. National wellbeing is better served by presenting relevant news, either positive, negative, or neutral. For example, well-being is better served by informing citizens about accomplishments of their educational system, as well as better served by presenting the problems of the health system to deal with an aging population. In another example, the national wellbeing is better served by the media talking about urbanization plans that reduce CO2 footprint, as well as by talking about technological trends that increase the risk of labor displacement. In a similar way that the role of negative affect, the role of relevant negative news is to allow citizens to ponder the need of changing and fine-tuning their social organization. In consequence, negative stories may have a positive contribution to national wellbeing in the long term. Of course, it is not only about having balanced news, but also about having educated citizens, and an institutional context that allows citizens to influence their country's path.
Professor Mariano Rojas
Professor of Economics, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla -
Agree I agree. Improving national wellbeing ought to be amongst the goals of a publicly funded broadcaster, and positive stories do contribute to wellbeing. Presumably, the reason that the media puts relatively little attention on positive stories is that such stories are generally less popular than negative ones. Public broadcasters should not completely ignore this, as the positive impact of happy news stories would be lost if few people are interested in them. But a preference to positive stories at some cost to popularity is likely to contribute to national wellbeing, so should be encouraged.
Professor Guy Mayraz
Lecturer, University of Sydney -
Agree Currently there is indeed more bad news than ever in western media while we live now longer and happier than ever in human history. One of the drivers of this paradox is that there are many organizations that seek to create a better world (like Greenpeace) and therefore bring potential problems to the public attention. Many of these reach the political agenda and are subsequently solved, which is why we are so happy. Still, a side-effect is that citizens come to think that life is getting worse and that restorative tendencies a are fostered which bring us back to the worse world of the past. It is difficult to assess the relative weight of these effect; the positive effect of social criticism against the negative effect of misinformed conservatism. My personal estimate is that we need more attention to what is going well in contemporary society.
Professor Ruut Veenhoven
Professor of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam -
Agree I suspect that media have an incentive to put attention on negative news stories because those tend to be better at grabbing people's attention. Even if their goal were solely to capture the most "important" news, I suspect broadcasters would put more attention on positive/happy news stories than they do. And if improving national wellbeing were among the goals, then all the more so.
Professor Daniel Benjamin
Associate Professor of Economics, University of Southern California -
Disagree News should be balanced and show a realistic view of the world, with positive and optimistic news as well as negative events. It is of course important to put attention to positive news that increase wellbeing and give hope to people. However, we can’t forget reality. Most important, national wellbeing is the sum of those who have an easier life and want to see happy news and of those who suffer. To increase national wellbeing we would also need to improve the conditions of those in worse conditions. How could they improve if no one knows about their suffering? Although it is true that some people are very negatively impacted by the negative news, it is also true that for most people the negative effect seems not strong enough to make them do something to stop this suffering elsewhere. This is, they are not willing to incur direct costs to help others.
Professor Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Professor of Economics, IAE-CSIC -
Agree News coverage should reflect the diversity of human experiences and achievements. While negative events are important to report, focusing solely on them can create a skewed perception of reality. Including positive events provides a more accurate portrayal of the world, acknowledging that both positive and negative events coexist. Governments have a responsibility to promote the public good and ensure the wellbeing of their citizens. Intervening to encourage media outlets, particularly public broadcasters, to prioritize positive news coverage aligns with this objective, as it contributes to a healthier and more informed society. But any measures taken to promote more positive news coverage should be transparent, with clear objectives and mechanisms for oversight to ensure that they do not infringe upon press freedom or editorial independence.
Professor Daniela Andrén
Senior Lecturer, Örebro University School of Business -
Agree A very good question. In Germany, the public broadcasters have actually begun to do so, but in a balanced manner. As with most things, it is important here to get the balance right: one needs to know what is going on in other, distant countries and "feel" with other people, also because it changes one's own behaviour, perhaps for the better (e.g. climate change), and makes one appreciate one's situation more. On the other hand, the world is not all gloomy, and it may also be important to portray that, for a balanced assessment. It is important to note, however, that public broadcasters, at least in democratic societies, have the mandate to inform and educate the public, and not to manipulate them (e.g. via propaganda).
Professor Christian Krekel
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics -
Agree There should be more stories about positive things that people are doing. Absolutely. Not to deny that sadness in the world, but to keep the perspective that human kindness still lives on. We should know about war and suffering. But our minds are too easily drawn to negative information. By comparison, it takes more effort to think about positives and to remember the positives that exist in our lives and in our community. So media can help with this. Of course the quality of the positive news might matter. News about successful volunteer efforts for example might be more inspiring that news that is only meant to be humorous. But we must remember that positive moods can foster helping behavior and that too much negative news risks people feeling a need to detach.
Professor William Tov
Associate Professor of Psychology at Singapore Management University -
Agree Whilst in principle the job of public broadcasters is not to cause wellbeing but to inform the public, I think that that information role in reality does indeed require public broadcasters to 'lean against the wind of negativity'. Because it is true that one gets stronger emotional responses from images of fear and mayhem, and hence more interest as a media outlet, there is a natural tendency for media to distort reality negatively. That reduces wellbeing and misinforms. Particularly public broadcasters should keep the overall balance of the negative and positive things happening in society in sight, which serves both the role of public media to inform and happens to increase wellbeing too. So the natural tendency within media that "if it bleeds, it leads" should be somewhat counterbalanced with reporting on the overall state of affairs, which will invariably lead to more positive influences than harping on the negative.
Professor Paul Frijters
Professorial Research Fellow, CEP Wellbeing Programme, London School of Economics -
Agree With global connectivity, news travel very fast. The public needs to be informed about the actualities; some may be positive and some negative or less positive. People's receptivity of broadcasted news may vary, depending on their age, location, culture, moral and religious values, taste and preferences as well as press freedom. Good news stories that reflect positivity arouse a sense of optimism in people, making them feel that world is progressing in the 'right' way, possibly causing a release of feel good dopamine in them. But if we are constantly bombarded by negative news of killings, atrocities, corruption, drugs addictions, sufferings and other human deprivations, this creates a sense of anxiety and despair among in people's lives. News should focus more on global warming, progress in science and technology, more on how certain national or contextual policies are making a meaningfully positive difference in peoples' lives and potentially augmenting their life satisfaction.
Professor Darma Mahadea
Associate Professor and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa -
Agree Public broadcasters should also report good news in addition to bad news. However, by “good news” is not meant entertainment news, which has temporary effects, but news about solutions of problems, proposal and implementation of cooperative plans. The positive effects on well-being would be more long-term in such case.
Professor Maurizio Pugno
Full Professor of Economics, University of Cassino -
Neither agree nor disagree What is more important in traditional media (newspapers/TV/Radio) & social-media-based reporting is 'balance'. Biased reporting, in either direction communicates a reduced information set which can influence/skew the opinions, actions and happiness of individuals, particularly those who choose not to gather/check their news/information from/with multiple sources.
Doctor Tony Beatton
Visiting Fellow, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) -
Completely disagree I strongly disagree. I think that public broadcasters should put attention on both positive and negative news stories. The media need to show to people, countries, and the whole World the true reality. Mass media and public broadcasters should never manipulate it. For example, on the one hand, public broadcaster (and the media in general) should do strong efforts to find and show positive/happy news stories to improve people moods and encourage them to do good things for others. Anyway, happiness is strongly link to benevolence and altruism. On the other hand, public broadcaster (and the media) should also show negative news to citizens. Yet, they should do it aiming to reach a key goal: teaching people that we all have a role to play in creating a better World and decrease misery. Scientific evidence and research should be disseminated to show citizens that if they help others in need, their lives will be much better.
Professor Wenceslao Unanue
Assistant Professor, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
The first statement panellists were asked to agree or disagree with was a technical question: "Mass suffering of people in distant countries negatively affects our own wellbeing when it is reported prominently in the media."
9 out of the 19 agreed with this, 9 were in between, and only 1 disagreed. Even the one who disagreed though (Mariano Rojas) stated that he believed that individuals who followed images of suffering and identified with them do experience declining wellbeing.
In a similar vein did several panellists draw attention to research on the empathic mechanism. Christian Krekel brings up the research on negative spillover effects of terrorist activity across countries. David Blanchflower reminds us of Adam Smith who postulated that we are affected by the sentiments of others. Stephanié Rossouw brings up her own paper on how empathy with the population of Ukraine leads to suffering among those in Europe following the news of its conflict. Conal Smith brings up the role of mirror neurons in the transmission of the image of suffering of others to their own brain. Paul Frijters brings up his own research on how spouses are affected by the emotions of the other spouse.
Still, whilst all the responding panel members agree that people are negatively affected by seeing suffering among people they identify with, several panel members point out that this does not mean that populations are worse off seeing suffering in the media. For one, the viewer might not like those who suffer or empathise much in general. As Arthur Grimes points out in relation to the bombing in WWII of ‘the enemy’ (Dresden and Nagasaki), some images of mayhem might make people feel better. Tony Beatton and Wenceslao Unanue also bring up the possibility that some of us are simply less empathic or benevolent than others. Guy Mayraz even points out that some of us might feel better about ourselves if we see others suffering, via comparison effects. Kelsey O’Connor speculates seeing the suffering of others might bring better perspective to our own lives.
Secondly, there is the effect of choices to consider that arise from seeing the suffering. Ruut Veenhoven and Daniel Benjamin suggest that seeing the suffering of others in the long run improves our own lives because it spurs us on to policies that avoid the same fate. Darma Mahedead points out that images of suffering might lead to offers of help to the sufferers that in turn could tilt the scale positively for everyone.
The second question was about whether there should be more positive news: "Public broadcasters should put more attention on positive/happy news stories to improve national wellbeing."
Here, the opinions were more definite, with 13 agrees, 2 in between, and 4 disagrees.
In the detailed comments you see the arguments tugging in different directions. One argument (Paul Frijters, Kelsey O’Conner, Mariano Rojas, Daniel Benjamin) is that news currently has a negativity bias which reduces wellbeing and also leads to less informative news. In this vein, William Tov, Darma Mahadead and Daniela Andrén express the view that populations need reminding of goodness in the world, partly to maintain a healthy internal balance (cf. Stephanié Rossouw). Christian Krekel reports that in Germany the media has started to consciously push out more positive news stories so as to avoid unwarranted gloom.
Another argument combines the believed positive effect of positive news combined with the notion that media does have some responsibility for wellbeing. Chris Barrington-Leigh explicitly reminds us that the notion of objectivity is false as there is always a choice about what to report or study, meaning that media does have a wellbeing responsibility. Guy Mayraz also openly embraces the idea that the media has a wellbeing responsibility. Maurizio Pugno makes the argument that the positive news that should be pushed out more is of successful cooperation.
Others take a different line. Conal Smith and Arthur Grimes take the view that wellbeing is not the media’s job and that it’s dangerous to make it the media’s job. Veenhoven points out that negative stories help to engender better decisions, though he agrees on balance that there should be more positive stories because of the negativity bias. Ada Ferrer and Wenceslao Unanue see both arguments, but they are more worried about media losing sight of reality if it were told to be more positive.
In all, the wellbeing experts were fairly united on the idea that seeing suffering in those with whom we identify leads to a negative effect on wellbeing, though the choices we then make as a result (avoidance of the same fate and the help we then give) might be good for wellbeing in the long-run. The panel was less united on the idea that public media should in some way be directed towards more positivity. Whilst a clear majority did believe the media was overly negative and that that had undesirable effects on wellbeing and societal functioning, a sizeable minority was seriously worried about the effect on news quality of any mandates.