Emotional Storytelling Via Mainstream Media

In our discussions about the mainstream media's portrayal of war compared to alternative media's portrayal of war, the facts of the story, the narratives, and the motives for reporting all change, but we're still consuming information from both sides regularly. Even though we know of the disparity between the two sources, we continue to go back to the conspiracy blogs, the David Muir twitter account, and/or tune in to Fox News.

Why? 

I believe that, regardless of who's feeding us the information (or who we're consuming it from, whichever angle you want to look at it), we keep going back because we, as human beings desire a good story, rich with emotion, that makes us feel some kind of... catharsis, or emotional cleansing. My belief that is, within a 30 minute newscast, we can go from being engrossed in the courtroom facts about prosecutors seeking the death penalty for James Holmes, feeling shocked by the accounts of former Taliban Pakistanis that are going through a rehabilitation process, and finally, feeling relieved and grateful, knowing that our lives could be worse. 

I think that, in a way, we go out of our way to consume this information, because it's presented in such a traditional format, black and white, just the way we enjoy it. Simple, clean, separated, easy to understand. I feel that news from any source, mainstream or alternative identifies with that very foundation of a story. Take the James Holmes case for example... After he took the life of dozens in a movie theatre during "The Dark Knight Rises" last July, the story was laid out for a us very clearly. There was a villain (Holmes) and there were victims. The way that the story was framed for us was that this man was disturbed and deserved whatever the courts handed down to him. 

In addition to being able to recognize the patterns of stories we're presented in the daily news, I believe that we subtly make comparisons of the subjects in the news to our own lives. When I'm reading the story about how young Pakistani boys were kidnapped by the Taliban and brainwashed for several years, I'm thinking to myself, "This is terrible." But terrible compared to what? My own life? Yeah, that's pretty awful. But the story ends on a good note! And that's how we're left after reading the news, taken on an emotional roller coaster. But why? Do we enjoy it? Secretly? But we don't even know it? Perhaps...