Kate Fox

Media is one of the greatest and the most significant inventions of humanity. Nowadays, media serves people as a resource of information, entertainment, and advertising. People find necessary information from different kinds of newspapers, journals, magazines, TV and radio programs, Internet sites. It is evident that media plays a great role in life of humanity and is as important for people as air.

However, times change, and everything changes. Media is not an exception. The most evident example is kinds of media. At early stages of its development, media, as well as other spheres of human life, such as literature or music, had a form of oral speech. News spread from one person to another, from one village to another, from one city to another gradually. It is evident that the process of information dissemination was slow. However, people invented newspapers soon. Newspapers were published on daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and included information concerning the events that took place during a specific time period. As newspapers were published in the hundreds of exemplars, information began to spread quicker as it did before. The next step of media development was the invention of radio and television. A great number of radio and TV programs contributed to greater amount of information, which was aimed at giving people new knowledge, advertisements, and entertainment. The last step, which influenced media, was the Internet. It is evident that the Internet is the most powerful source of information nowadays. One can find any book, article of any newspaper, journal or magazine, any radio station or TV show online in the Internet. As a result, media took shape of numerous resources of information, which were created to satisfy people’s needs.

However, media not only acquired the form of different resources, it has changed its aim to some extent. Researchers describe modern goals of media in following way: In addition to its responsibility to keep the public informed, the media must consider the interests of its audience when choosing which stories to report. It means that media takes into account what society wants to know. As modern society is spoilt with numerous pieces of news, ways of information submission, and similarity of what they learn, it is hard to find something that will surprise society and attract its attention. However, people who work in the sphere of media found a way to do it. They invented sensation. Since that time, almost every piece of news became sensational. As a result, such phenomenon as sensationalism in media appeared. This very aspect of media will be covered in the given work.

Sensationalism in media, its nature, reasons and consequences, is an issue that has been studied for decades. During the period of study, a lot of thoughts concerning this question were expressed. Some researchers told that sensationalizing of news badly influences society, the others supposed that sensations even have some beneficial effects, while the third group of researchers stayed neutral concerning this issue. The very fact of discussions among researchers concerning sensationalism determines the topicality of this issue. Nevertheless, before starting to study any phenomenon, it should be first defined. Sensationalism takes the form of stories about crimes, disasters, World scandals, and monstrosities and stimulates unwholesome emotional responses in the average reader.

As the phenomenon of sensationalism filled almost every type of media and appears to be the central issue of modern media development, its nature and peculiarities will be covered in the course of the research. The research will be carried out on the basis of several positions. First of all, the nature of sensationalism will be covered – its social, economic, and political reasons. Secondly, the means of sensation creation will be described – headlines of news, photos, language, special effects and other means. Lastly, the consequences of sensationalism in media will be covered.

As it was mentioned above, the phenomenon of sensationalism in media has been studied before. A lot of researchers expressed different points of view concerning this issue. Some of the scholars limited themselves to simple analysis of sensationalism, giving examples of it and comparing different types of media, which used sensationalism during information dissemination. Other researchers confirmed that this phenomenon influenced society in a bad way; that it threatened some spheres of people’s lives, and it needed to be removed from media at all. Only few researchers expressed positive point of view concerning sensationalism. Nevertheless, regardless of their own point of view, all researches agreed on the fact that the issue of sensationalism is controversial and causes a lot of discussions.

Having analyzed previous work that had been done in this area and having read a number of articles dedicated to the phenomenon of sensationalism in media, the conclusion about the majority of neutral attitudes towards this issue on the part of researchers can be made. The articles of Grabe, Zhou, and Barnett; Vettehen, Nuijten, and Beentjes; Schiffel and Smith, and a number of others are focused on examining the nature of the phenomena, and representing different points of view rather than insisting on a specific attitude. These works emphasize characteristics of sensationalism in media. For example, Karen Slattery distinguished lurid headlines, explicit photographs, descriptive language, fear-including statements, loaded words and other elements as those creating sensations in media. Grabe, Zhou, and Barnett; and Vettehen, Nuijten, and Beentjes paid attention to comparing different points of view concerning the phenomenon of sensationalism. Thus, they said that sensations in media were criticized for their topics and negative influences, on the one hand. On the other hand, they were regarded as grabbing and emotionally arousing, and even beneficial for people.

A number of the works, which express negative attitude to the phenomenon of sensationalism in media, is also great. Thus, Lucy Childs; Karen Slattery; and Corey Bradshaw, Barry Brook, and Clive McMahon cover negative aspects of sensationalism in media. Corey Bradshaw, Barry Brook, and Clive McMahon gave an example of Steve Irwin’s show on TV as the one which shows negative influence of sensationalism. His practice was described as capturing, handling, and therefore stressing normally reclusive and clan-destine species for the benefit of public entertainment. The authors of the article emphasized that Steve Irwin misunderstood important ecological processes, which led to unethical methods he used. That is why researchers expressed the desire to have “intelligent, informed and respectful people working in the media sphere.

The research of Lucy Childs represented the issue of sensationalism in media on the example of numerous newspaper articles devoted to investigation of Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) bacterium. First of all, the scholar learned that 48 of 69 analyzed articles included common misconceptions concerning MRSA. Dirty hospitals as a cause of MRSA infection, a great number of deaths in the result of MRSA infection, absence of treatment were some of these misconceptions, which were the result of sensationalism. The researcher also emphasized the consequences of making sensations from an ordinary piece of news. It was confirmed that exaggerated news was the cause of panic and anxiety among people, threatening in such a way normal life of society.

Having analyzed these articles, one can understand that sensationalism in media becomes a reason of danger not only for human society but for natural environment as well. That is why the authors of these works address to readers with a view to reconsider their attitudes to sensationalism in media.

Research works, which express positive attitude to sensationalism in media, are very few. To be more precise, the aspect of positive influence of sensationalism is covered as a possible one in a number of works. However, there was no work that would praise sensations in media in its entirety. Thus, the possibility of beneficial influence on society was covered at length in the work of Grabe, Zhou, and Barnett. The researchers confirmed that sensationalism plays an important role in maintaining a society’s commonly shared notions of decency and morality by publicity showcasing what is unacceptable. Secondly, they said that topics of sensational stories such as violence, family conflicts, disasters, substance abuse and others are more important for society than some political or economic issues.

Special interest is drawn by the ways of carrying out researches, which were described in the articles. Each scholar found his/her own way to analyze data concerning sensationalism in media. For example, Grabe, Zhou, and Barnett analyzed two programs and examined how technical details and topics of news influence sensations. Schiffel and Smith analyzed a great number of articles, especially political ones, and examined whether there were some exaggerations. A similar analysis was carried out by Lucy Childs in order to find out how sensationalism manifested itself in social articles.

Certainly, each research work is unique, and every scholar has his/her right for own opinion. Having analyzed a number of articles, which represented different attitudes to the phenomenon of sensationalism in media, and examining arguments for and against sensations, it is hard to decide which point of view is right. However, all the works are interesting, and each of them contributes to understanding of the phenomenon studied. The analyzed articles will be used in the process of research work writing as a basis for it. As it is hard to determine any point of view concerning sensationalism at the moment, the research will cover a number of questions, which will help to decide what statement is right and why.

The issue of sensationalism in media is of great interest nowadays. It has been studied by numerous researchers for a long time. Scholars paid their attention to different aspects of sensationalism while carrying out their researches. The nature of the phenomenon, the means of its transferring, its influences, opposite attitudes to sensationalism can be found in research works. However, this issue, as well as a phenomenon of media in general, varies; that is why it is still interesting. Moreover, none of the works included all aspects of sensationalism – each one focused attention on some specific feature – either some analysis of influences, or comparing opposite thoughts concerning this issue. That is why the given work will be aimed at a deep study of the phenomenon of sensationalism, including as many of its features as possible. Thus, a definition of sensationalism, the history of its development, the means of transferring sensations in different types of media, negative and positive influences of sensationalism on society, and the reasons which make journalists, producers, and directors make sensations out of simple stories will be covered in the research work.

The basis of the research will consist of scholar articles, which are devoted to the issue of sensationalism. Some articles were already analyzed. Each of them is unique, and focuses its attention on different aspects of the phenomenon. Warren Francke in the article “Sensationalism and the development of 19th-century reporting: The broom sweeps sensory details” describes the history of sensationalism on the example of 19th-century newspapers. Marvin Olasky also makes a topic of sensationalism of 19th century a central issue of his research, and covers it from moral point of view in the article “Late 19th-century Texas sensationalism: Hypocrisy or Biblical morality?”. A number of works were dedicated to analyzing the phenomenon of sensationalism in different types of media (newspaper and journal articles, TV shows), especially ways of its transferring. The works of Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Shuhua Zhou, and Brooke Barnett “Explicating sensationalism in television news: Content and the bells and whistles of form”, Karen Slattery “Sensationalism versus news of the moral life: Making the distinction”, Lee Schiffel and Ken Smith “How does the media report on government performance?” are the examples of such research. The works of Lucy Childs; Paul Vettehen, Koos Nuijten, and Johannes Beentjes; and Corey Bradshaw, Barry Brook, and Clive McMahon also covered the issue of sensationalism from a similar point of view.

As it was mentioned earlier, the given work will cover questions of definition, history, types, reasons, and consequences of sensationalism in media. However, this research will be carried out in general format, covering each important aspect of the phenomenon of sensationalism. That is why a number of questions can be omitted and unsolved. Nevertheless, these questions can be covered in similar works concerning sensationalism in media. For example, separate work can be dedicated to the topics of news, which are usually sensationalized. One more aspect of the phenomenon, which can be paid special attention, is language, which is used during sensations making.

Having analyzed a small piece of literature dedicated to the issue of sensationalism in media, it can be concluded that this topic is broad and interesting. Despite of numerous research works dedicated to this phenomenon, a great number of questions are left uncovered or-semi covered – this fact makes the issue of sensationalism one of the central topics to research in the sphere of media.

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