Today, there is much more news on problems and emergencies than on positive developments in the media. For example, there is a famouse TV channel called CCTV4 in China. Every day there are some news reports on this channel. But when you switch on the TV, switch to CCTV4 and prepare to relax, all you see is always bad news! Today it’s warfare and death, tomorrow it’s warfare and death again. Oh, you may ask what is it like when there is no war? Well, it’s car accidents, building fires, earthquakes. Anyway, it’s always collecting news related to death! By the way, that’s why I stopped using 抖音 and 快手, the latter one being another popular short video platform in China, where there is also a lot of bad news.
So, Why is there always bad news on TV? What are the advantages of this trend? What are the disadvantages of this trend?
The disadvantages I can think of are as follows. Many people have a busy lifestyle today. In other words, mose people are chronically anxious. Those bad news are likely to increase their stress and anxiety. Well, another disadvantage is that frenquent expouse to bad news may make people indifferent them. For example, I no longer care about the war between Russian and Ukraine, but at the beginning of the war, I watched the news about it almost every day!
But does it have advantages? Yeah. I have to admit that it can raise public awareness of a wide range of social problems such as poverty, drug abuse and crime. It makes people get a deepen understanding of the society in which they live, the ugly society. But I think that the most important reason is that this kind of news can make people feel happier than those living in other countries. That’s exactly what they want. lol. Other reasons, such as rising public awarenes of these problems can often lead to more public support and more government funding for solutions to the problems, are more of a disguise for the real purpose.
Romain Rolland said, there is only one heroism in the world: to see the world as it is and to love it. But I think trying to do that is extremely difficult for most people! At least I can’t do that. So, I don’t like bad news and fucking media!