Comfortably Numb: Effects of Prolonged Media Coverage

• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Author: Aaron M. Hoffman,José Kaire
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002720907675
• Date: 01 October 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comfortably Numb:

Effects of Prolonged

Media Coverage

Aaron M. Hoffman

1

, and Jos ´

e Kaire

2

Abstract

Exposure to a single report about terrorism in the mass media can trigger a range of

emotional and political reactions. The consequences of exposure to several ter-

rorism reports in row, however, are a matter of controversy. We examine the

effects of prolonged terrorism coverage using an experimental design that combines

self-report measures of emotions and political attitudes with instantaneous bio-

metric data on emotions. Consistent with research on nonassociational learning, we

find that exposure to multiple videos habituates people to depictions of terrorism:

the longer people watch terrorism coverage, the less intense their reactions are to

the images of terrorism they see. Some images and videos, however, contribute to

this result more than others. This suggests that the ultimate effects of terrorism

coverage depend on the interplay between the quantity and quality of reporting, not

the quantity alone.

Keywords

terrorism, media, political psychology, experiment, emotion

Exposure to just one terrorism story can trigger emotions that make people feel

insecure (Breckenridge, Zimbardo, and Sweeton 2010), inclined to trade liberty for

security (Davis and Silver 2004; Merolla and Zechmeister 2009), and enthusiastic

1

Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

2

Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Aaron M. Hoffman, Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive,

Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6.

Email: aaron_hoffman@sfu.ca

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(9) 1666-1692

ªThe Author(s) 2020

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sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002720907675

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about the use of military force (Huddy et al. 2005). What happens, though, when

people see multiple reports about terrorism? Nightly news watchers sometimes

watch as many as five terrorism stories in a row. Do these longer presentations have

emotional and political effects above and beyond those produced by a single terror-

ism story?

Many say“yes.” According to Nacos (2007,21), for example, persistentexposure to

“...new threat warnings by terrorists, pessimistic threat assessments by public offi-

cials, and identification of vulnerableterror targets by or in the media heighten public

fear amongheavy news watchers.” Indeed,prolonged exposure to coverageof the 9/11

attacks resulte di n increased rates of post-trau matic stress disorder (PTSD) and P TSD-

like symptoms among viewers (Schuster et al. 2001; Silver et al. 2002). Continual

watchers of the Boston Marathon bombing coverage experienced acute stress more

than less dedicated viewers (Holman, Garfin, and Silver 2014). Similarly, regular

watchers of television news express greater levels of concern about terrorism than

people who watch the news infrequently (Nellis et al.2012).

Nevertheless, other studies imply that prolonged exposure to terrorism coverage

habituates people to this f orm of political violence. In Is rael, chronic terrorism

apparently has little influence on Israelis’ life satisfaction (Romanov, Zussman, and

Zussman 2012), leisure pursuits (Gal 2014), and psychiatric stress levels (Bleich,

Gelkopf, and Solomon 2003). Londoners who experienced terrorism by the Irish

Republican Army reported less distress from the 3/11 attack on the London under-

ground than 9/11 created among Americans (Rubin et al. 2005).

These contradictory findings are puzzling. Persistent reporting about terrorism is

thought to encourage perpetrators to use violence by amplifying the psychological

effects of their attacks. Media presentations that habituate people to terrorist threats,

however, call the idea that the media makes people more susceptible to terrorism’s

effects into question. Rather than making terrorism’s psychological onslaught

worse, extensive terrorism coverage might make it harder for perpetrators to inti-

midate their enemies.

Our research addresses the issue of prolonged exposure to terrorism coverage

using an experiment that compares the emotional effects of exposu re to several

terrorism videos with exposure to one. This approach addresses two challenges that

undercut the internal validity of observational studies. First, it eliminates a selection

problem: people who feel threatened rely on the mass media more (Gadarian 2010).

Consequently, attention to terrorism coverage may be a product of anxiety rather

than a cause of it. Assigning the amount of terrorism coverage people see at random

protects against drawing this mistaken inference.

Second, using a laboratory enables us to assess people’s emotions in real time.

Studies of terrorism coverage typically ask people to recall how terrorism presenta-

tions influenced them. People, however, tend to report their emotions inaccurately,

except for the one they experienced last (Bonanno and Keltner 2004). An automated

facial action coding system we use enables us to avoid this problem by tracking

emotional responses as they happen.

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