Positive Media?
What is media's upside?
We can count on our fingers and our toes the many ways that
people feel media perpetuates negativity.
Think politics, world disasters, violence and sex and you
get the idea, right?
But if that were all media was then most of us wouldn’t want
to be associated with it. We don’t want our good name and our clients’ good
names to be confused with the dark side of this information distribution
mechanism.
We know, from our many years working on media desks as well
our decades of experience working with the media to promote client news that
there really is so much more to media than the negative spin it is charged with
creating.
To back up our first-hand knowledge we wanted to share some
media-related facts with that you that shows how media has a light, positive
side as well.
For example, we recently learned that the family-friend
animated film Zootopia is one of the highest-grossing films recorded for the
first part of this year. That’s because it was uplifting and hopeful.
The point: Media researchers now suggest that media can
highlight and support positive messages in many ways.
According to Sophie H. Janicke, Ph.D. studies of media
psychology show that media messages that are positive can actually encourage
people to want to become better at helping others.
Hanicke, who investigates the role that new and traditional
media play in promoting and affecting character development, self-transcendent
emotions, prosocial behavior, and subjective well-being, noted that films are
very powerful form of media.
“They can elicit “elevation,” the warm, uplifting feeling we
get when we watch someone perform deeply moral acts, such as acts of gratitude,
generosity, or loyalty.”
Meaningful Media
Media that depicts altruistic values, such as social justice
and care for the weak, are significantly more “meaningful” to viewers than
other films.
This same information holds true for other forms of media as
well. News, for example, that focuses upon what people are doing to improve the
quality of life for others is more favorable than news that depicts inequality
and despair.
We think that’s because positive media provides solutions,
examples, and suggestions for how to make changes that everyone agrees have to
be made.
And who can argue with that? Only those who really don’t
want things to change for the better.
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