8 ms·

Hans Rosling's work is famous for pointing out how media incentives, statistical illiteracy, and our preconceptions give us a flawed sense of the world. In the

by nemild 8y ago

Hans Rosling's work is famous for pointing out how media incentives, statistical illiteracy, and our preconceptions give us a flawed sense of the world. In the vein of Hans Rosling, I've done add'l research on media coverage vs actual stats for death. What's covered is what we most want to read about. As a society, we need many more lessons on statistics and the incentives behind news: The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html Today’s biggest threat to democracy isn’t fake news—it’s selective facts https://qz.com/1130094/todays-biggest-threat-to-democracy-isnt-fake-news-its-selective-facts/ https://qz.com/1130094/todays-biggest-threat-to-democracy-is... How Media Fuels our Fear of Western Terrorism https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html EDIT: As some commenters point, news covers "new" things — and so of course it's at odds with data. The problem is that most consumers of news don't understand that just because something is heavily covered doesn't mean it's common — or relevant input for personal decisions they make. This speaks to the issue of media literacy, and I'd argue is why Rosling's book is so important.

amelius 8y ago
The fundamental problem in media is their financial incentives, leading to clickbait articles, and sometimes even fake news. Government subsidies for proper, independent news reporting could help tremendously here. But unfortunately, now all politicians are looking at Facebook to solve the problem.
- nemild 8y ago
  I think another way is to train readers to understand the issues, and over decades, change the incentives faced by media. Or for us to push back on the incentives that social networks set for media outlets. I wrote a media literacy guide for engineers in this vein: https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- roywiggins 8y ago
  Are government-owned news outlets significantly better on this particular issue (of deaths)? What does the BBC, CBC, ABC, Al-Jazeera cover? I'd wager it's substantially similar. You'd have to have orders of magnitude more articles about people dying of heart disease (or whatever) to make up for it, and I don't think eg. the BBC spends its resources that way.
- alter_eco123 8y ago
  > Government subsidies for proper, independent news reporting could help tremendously here. If your reporting depends on government subsidies, it's very much not independent.
titanix2 8y ago
> The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die They are precisely covered because they are exceptional. No one care about car accidents because that's a banal cause of death. But a plane crash is not. In countries like France where islamic terror attacks have became common place, small scale attacks causing a few deaths are not covered for days and days anymore. Also event like a terror attack informs more about the state of a country and the world than an one suicide (suicide rate or aggregate can be valuable insight hough).
- nemild 8y ago
  Absolutely, but many people use this news coverage to then make decisions. Statistically, this is crazy. Like Rosling, the point is that we need to understand why the media covers things the way it does.
- randcraw 8y ago
  Of course. By its very nature, outliers are the only thing that news covers. Exceptions make news. Conventions do not. If you're hearing it on the news, it's useless information, like a TouTube video of a cat playing the piano while juggling mice. Once upon a time, I think news was an invitation to get engaged in your community because change was needed or forthcoming, and as a citizen, it was your duty to know about the subject in order to contribute constructively, perhaps in a town hall meeting or at least in a civic (civil) conversation with neighbors. Today nobody acts upon what they learn in big media news, other than to form misinformed opinions fraught with bias, to vote only every few years for a bad binary choice in rigged elections fielding untrustworthy candidates who pretend to address problems but actually perpetuate them via myopic self-interested gangsterism. Pop news is 99% clickbait and 1% fact.
  - devoply 8y ago
    The point of mass media is propaganda and entertainment in that order.
    - jrs95 8y ago
ManFromUranus 8y ago
I don't think it's media that fuels are fear of terrorism, I think it's actually the Terrorism. You are implying that the media makes it out to be worse than it is, I disagree. I think the media largely downplays terrorism and makes sure that we all think it just fell out of the sky and it's just crazy people and there's no rhyme or reason to it so there's no way to predict anything or take any action to stop it. The media just mollifies us and makes sure we don't get angry or take any steps, or do anything at all about it all except feel bad for the victims.

by nemild 8y ago

amelius 8y ago

The fundamental problem in media is their financial incentives, leading to clickbait articles, and sometimes even fake news. Government subsidies for proper, independent news reporting could help tremendously here. But unfortunately, now all politicians are looking at Facebook to solve the problem.

nemild 8y ago
I think another way is to train readers to understand the issues, and over decades, change the incentives faced by media. Or for us to push back on the incentives that social networks set for media outlets. I wrote a media literacy guide for engineers in this vein: https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
roywiggins 8y ago
Are government-owned news outlets significantly better on this particular issue (of deaths)? What does the BBC, CBC, ABC, Al-Jazeera cover? I'd wager it's substantially similar. You'd have to have orders of magnitude more articles about people dying of heart disease (or whatever) to make up for it, and I don't think eg. the BBC spends its resources that way.
alter_eco123 8y ago
> Government subsidies for proper, independent news reporting could help tremendously here. If your reporting depends on government subsidies, it's very much not independent.

titanix2 8y ago

> The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die They are precisely covered because they are exceptional. No one care about car accidents because that's a banal cause of death. But a plane crash is not. In countries like France where islamic terror attacks have became common place, small scale attacks causing a few deaths are not covered for days and days anymore. Also event like a terror attack informs more about the state of a country and the world than an one suicide (suicide rate or aggregate can be valuable insight hough).

nemild 8y ago
Absolutely, but many people use this news coverage to then make decisions. Statistically, this is crazy. Like Rosling, the point is that we need to understand why the media covers things the way it does.
randcraw 8y ago
Of course. By its very nature, outliers are the only thing that news covers. Exceptions make news. Conventions do not. If you're hearing it on the news, it's useless information, like a TouTube video of a cat playing the piano while juggling mice. Once upon a time, I think news was an invitation to get engaged in your community because change was needed or forthcoming, and as a citizen, it was your duty to know about the subject in order to contribute constructively, perhaps in a town hall meeting or at least in a civic (civil) conversation with neighbors. Today nobody acts upon what they learn in big media news, other than to form misinformed opinions fraught with bias, to vote only every few years for a bad binary choice in rigged elections fielding untrustworthy candidates who pretend to address problems but actually perpetuate them via myopic self-interested gangsterism. Pop news is 99% clickbait and 1% fact.
- devoply 8y ago
  The point of mass media is propaganda and entertainment in that order.
  - jrs95 8y ago

ManFromUranus 8y ago

I don't think it's media that fuels are fear of terrorism, I think it's actually the Terrorism. You are implying that the media makes it out to be worse than it is, I disagree. I think the media largely downplays terrorism and makes sure that we all think it just fell out of the sky and it's just crazy people and there's no rhyme or reason to it so there's no way to predict anything or take any action to stop it. The media just mollifies us and makes sure we don't get angry or take any steps, or do anything at all about it all except feel bad for the victims.