With the current Covid-19 pandemic, it is easy to fall into the trap of widespread panic and negative thinking. We see it all around us. Negative headlines and posts from friends all talking about the current state of the country, the world, our lives. With the constant coverage of the pandemic on our news channels, and constant conversations about the same issue on our social media feeds, it is hard to escape from the constant virus that is negative language. News media all too frequently uses negative language to manipulate, grab your attention, and scare you into believing whatever they are selling this time. The use of negative language has high impacts on people, and the world around them.
Let’s first talk about the negativity effect. As explained by Liebrecht et al. (2019), negative utterances get more attention, arouse more emotions, have more influence on recipient behavior, and are stored better and longer in memory. We as people tend to associate negative language with fear or danger, while we associate positivity with safety and security (Liebrecht et al. 2019). So why are more people not beginning to question the intentions of our news media? When watching news media, a large majority of what is being reported is a constant slew of negative messages designed to insight fear into the viewer. This can be widely seen with the constant coverage of the current Covid-19 pandemic as fake news and questionable headlines pop up on our screens.
All too often news outlets create an enticing headline for an article that is meant for you to click on, only to find that the article contradicts the entire headline under which it is written. Not only is it hard for us to verify the validity of the information that appears in the media, it is even harder to verify the character and intentions of those working in the media (Tsfati & Cohen 2012). So shouldn’t we all be a bit more concerned about the fake news that constantly surrounds us? Almost everywhere we look there is fake news being reported in order to gauge an emotional response from the public. Even now we hear things like ‘new normal’ used by media personnel during white house briefings. This phrasing sends a whole different message to the public with all of the rules and regulations to be followed with this pandemic. Many feel as though normal is something we will never experience again.
The use of negative language in this manner sends negative thinking into the mind of the viewer receiving this message. They hear a question being asked referring to the ‘new normal’ and the response received doesn’t seem to give much comfort in exchange. The use of specific words as opposed to others are a way of manipulating the message to seem more drastic or mean more than it really does, and in turn sending a whole new message. Intensification can be achieved in many ways: Words can be replaced (great instead of good), words can be added (extraordi- narily good instead of good), or stylistic figures (e.g., metaphors, He drowned in a sea of grief instead of He was very sad) and typographical elements (nice!!! instead of nice) can be used (Liebrecht et al. 2019). With these examples it is easy to see how language can be changed to intensify the meaning of that particular message. This can be used as a form of negative language to manipulate the viewer into fear or anger and elicit an emotional response within the public.
Evidence points out that, at least when it comes to certain news media effects, audience trust in news media is related to news media effectiveness (Tsfati & Cohen 2012). With this trust given to news media, their ability to set agendas, the opinions of the people watching, and the outcome of those opinions is easily manipulated with the use of negative language and specific phrasing to create the reaction they want. The interaction between emotion and language is not well understood (Havas et al. 2007). It is understandable that as humans, we have the ability to think and create judgements based on the information that we receive from whatever source it is we are turning to. Havas et al. 2007 found that in their first experiment sentences that were considered pleasant were read 54 milliseconds faster when participants were already in a good mood which was induced by their pen manipulation. Unpleasant sentences were read 36 milliseconds slower when the participant was smiling than when frowning.
The mood we display during the use of negative or pleasant language also has a role to play in how the language affects the person receiving the message. The pattern of results found by Havas et al. 2007 suggests that emotion simulation is not a lexical- level phenomenon, but instead affects comprehension at the level of the phrase or sentence. This points to the possibility that your emotional state affects the way you understand and therefore react to the message portrayed by the media. Which brings us back to the point of negative language and its effect on the people receiving the message. It is important to take the time to check facts, sources, and research the information that is being presented. Taking the time to comprehend and check information we see online or on TV could make a difference in the way people act and think in the future.
