The science behind how we perceive news

Today’s topic is one I feel passionately about. As an aspiring journalist, I’m becoming increasingly aware of the lack of trust or lack of interest associated with the world of news. People are constantly telling me that they don’t want to watch the news because its too sad or too biased or too everything.

But in reality, I think that it is just hard for people to see bad news when it is not directly affecting them, which is something that I completely understand because I have felt this way before too. However, I don’t think this should dimish the importance of the work that reporters and photojournalists are doing each day. Despite being hard to watch sometimes, the work is important and has the power to change the world.

Out of curiosity, I did a deeper dive into the introduction of pictures and videos in the news and the effects of visual storytelling on society. I wanted to explore the science of how people perceive this type of news in their brains and how this might result in the negative aura around news.

To do so, I researched and created this presentation below: