Negative psychological effects of watching the news in the television: Relaxation or another intervention may be needed to buffer them!

Abstract

The psychological effects of televised news were studied in 2 groups (n = 179) of undergraduate students who watched a 15-min random newscast followed by either a 15-min progressive relaxation exercise or a 15-min lecture (control condition). Subjective measures of state anxiety, total mood disturbance (TMD), positive affect, and negative affect were obtained before and after the news, as well as following relaxation exercise or the lecture. The results show that state anxiety and TMD increased, whereas positive affect decreased in both groups after watching the news and 15 min later they returned to baseline (pre-news) only in the relaxation group, whereas they remained unchanged in the control group. These findings demonstrate that watching the news on television triggers persisting negative psychological feelings that could not be buffered by attention-diverting distraction (i.e., lecture), but only by a directed psychological intervention such as progressive relaxation.

Full text

Psychological effects of newscasts
1
Running title: Psychological effects of television newscasts
Negative psychological effects of watching the news in
the television: Relaxation or another intervention may
be needed to buffer them!
Attila Szabo* and Katey L. Hopkinson
Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
This is a pre-publication version of the article:
Szabo, A., & Hopkinson, K. L. (2007). Negative psychological effects of watching the
news in the television: Relaxation or another intervention may be needed to buffer
them! International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 14(2), 57-62.
*
Corresponding author's current address:
dr. habil. Attila Szabo, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Institute of Health Promotion and
Sport Sciences, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University,
1117 Budapest, Bogdánfy u. 10, Hungary. E-mail: drattilaszabo@yahoo.com and
szabo.attila@ppk.elte.hu

Psychological effects of newscasts
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Abstract
The psychological effects of televised news were studied in two groups (n=179) of
undergraduate students who watched a 15-minute random newscast followed by either
a 15-minute progressive relaxation exercise or a 15-minute lecture (control condition).
Subjective measures of state anxiety, total mood disturbance (TMD), positive affect,
and negative affect were obtained before and after the news as well as following
relaxation exercise or the lecture. The results showed that state anxiety and TMD
increased, whereas positive affect decreased in both groups after watching the news
and 15 minutes later they returned to baseline (pre-news) only in the relaxation group
whilst remaining unchanged in the control group. These findings demonstrate that
watching the news in the television triggers persisting negative psychological feelings
that could not be buffered by attention-diverting distraction (i.e., lecture), but only by
a directed psychological intervention such as progressive relaxation.
Key words: Anxiety, Mood, Newscast, Relaxation, Television
Introduction
Although television newscast is the most important news medium (Hargreaves
& Thomas, 2002), only a limited number of studies have examined the psychological
impact of watching the news. It appears that the majority of news is negatively biased,
unless of course we live in a “bad world”. For example, Haskins, Miller and Quarles
(1984) reported that 60% of television news content could be considered as bad news
in contrast to 22% of it that could be considered as good news in light of their analysis
over a period of three months in the United States. Similarly, Stone and Grusin (1984)
analysed one week’s worth of randomly sampled news on three major commercial
American television channels (ABC, CBS, and NBC) over a 20-day sample period.
Across all three channels there were significantly higher numbers of bad news than
good news with 47% of all stories covered are being classified as bad news.
In addition to the amount of bad news, Johnson (1996) investigated the type of
news broadcasted on four television channels over a 6-month period. One hundred
news broadcasts were monitored in light of 5 categories of bad news that represented
various aspects of violence, conflict, and suffering (VCS); violent crime, tragedy and
suffering; conflict and discord; social and collective protests involving violence or
threats of violence; and war and military affairs. Overall on the four stations slightly
more than half (53.4%) of all stories depicted various forms of VCS, together with
54.5% of the total time being devoted to VCS. Further research on VCS has shown
that two thirds of total news began with a VCS story while 64% of the first five stories
covered some form of VCS (Stone & Grusin, 1984). Johnson (1996) also found
differences in local and national news broadcasts in the type of bad news coverage.
Local news focused more on crime whereas national news tended to focus more on
stories of war and protests.
In light of abundant negative newscasts in the television it appears important
to examine the psychological effects on the viewers. Unfortunately, limited research
has been done to examine the role of television news on the affective responses of the
viewers (Harrell, 2000). The term unfortunate is justified by the fact that television is
the primary source of news (Roper Starch, 1995) and that people may watch an

Psychological effects of newscasts
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average of three hours of newscast weekly (Anderson, Collins, Schmitt, & Jacobvitz,
1996). The limited research performed in this area shows clearly that watching
televised news has negative impact on people’s affect. For example, using a phone
interview method Galician (1986) studied viewers’ perception of good and bad news.
The results of the study showed that three out of four respondents believed that
television newscasts are overwhelmed by bad news that was considered depressing by
94% of participants. About one third of the respondents thought that bad news has
undesirable effects on viewers and 59% believed that newscasts tends to make things
worse than they really are. Such results warranted the more systematic investigation
of the psychological effects of exposure to negative or bad news in the television.
A systematic investigation conducted by Potts and Sanchez (1994) showed
that depression was associated with intensified negative feelings after viewing news
broadcasts in the television. Similarly, Johnston and Davey (1997) using a pre- to
post-viewing within participants research design found that watching a predominantly
negatively biased news programme raised reports of anxiety and sadness that could
subsequently increase one’s emotional response to personal problems. Another, more
recent, systematic inquiry by Harrell (2000) examined the effect of viewing positive
and negative television news viewing on various aspects of mood. Her results showed
that those participants who have viewed negative news items reported significantly
greater increases in anxiety and negative affect along with greater decreases in
positive affect than those participants who viewed the combined or positive news
items. Therefore, it is not surprising that televised reports of exceptionally negative
events like September 11 could lead to symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress
disorder, and general psychological morbidity in the viewers (Galea et al., 2002).
In light of the meagre but convincing evidence it is clear that exposure to
negative television news broadcast triggers negative affect in the viewers. It is also
factual that, at least in light of American analyses, the majority of television news
broadcasts could be classified as negative. An emerging question, then, addressed in
this study is whether the negative impact of news watching dissipates automatically
over time whilst engaging in other mundane activities (no intervention needed) or
whether one needs to engage in active coping (intervention needed) to overcome the
negative experience. Indeed, if negative affect is carried over, even for a brief period,
into the real life activities of the news viewers it may be the source of the behavioural
vulnerability with possible negative consequences.
Methods
Pilot study
Since most information on the content of television newscasts emerged from
American reports, an initial pilot study was performed to examine whether the British
television newscast at the time of study was comparable to the American trend. In this
pilot study, newscasts were recorded from three British terrestrial channels over a
period of ten days. Ten volunteers rated the contents of the news as positive, neutral,
or negative. The analyses of that rating showed that the majority of the British news
content was perceived as negative (59%). Only 20% of the stories in the news were
rated as positive while 21% of the stories in the news were rated as neutral, meaning
that depending on beliefs or values they could be seen either positive or negative. No
major traumatic events occurred in the world at the time of this pilot study.

Psychological effects of newscasts
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Participants
A convenience sample of 173 undergraduate students enrolled in Sport and
Exercise Psychology module at Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom
was tested. Students’ participation was part of an instructional-research exercise to
which they all have consented. The participants’ mean age was 18.7 (SD = 1.0) years,
ranging from 18 to 24 years and the majority had been males (n=127). The students
were assigned to a relaxation and a lecture group on the bases of the starting letter of
their surnames. Those whose surname began with A to K were selected into a
progressive relaxation group (n = 80) and those whose surname began with J to Z
were assigned to a lecture control group (n = 93). Although the emotional impact of
lectures may vary, a number of scholars investigating acute psychological changes
have used lecturing as a means of control to more potent affect-mediating
interventions, such as exercise for example (e.g., Berger, Owen, & Man, 1993; Don,
1997). Students were explained the protocol, were granted the right to deny consent or
to discontinue their participation at any time, and were informed about grouping only
after watching the news to avoid expectations associated with being selected into the
specific group.
Materials
Three questionnaires were used in obtaining four measures of affect. State
anxiety was assessed with Spielberger’s State Anxiety Inventory (SSAI - (Spielberger,
Gorsuch, and Lushene, 1970). An abbreviated version of the Profile of Mood States
(POMS) inventory (Grove and Prapavessis, 1992) was used for obtaining a total mood
disturbance (TMD) score. Finally, a modified 14-item version of the Positive Affect
Negative Affect Scale (PANAS – Gauvin and Szabo, 1992) was used in gauging
positive and negative affect.
The newscast presented to the participants was recorded 1-hour prior to testing
from Channel 5. Its first 15 minutes were played back to the participants during the
testing. The contents of the news are illustrated in Table 1. Since a test date was
agreed in advance the experimenters and the participants could not predict the content
of the newscast. Accordingly, the newscast was selected by chance (whatever news
will be broadcasted on the testing day).
The recorded newscast was presented to the participants by using a VHS video
cassette player (VideoPlus+, PDC BC969NI) with images projected on a 2.8 m screen
through a Hitachi (CP– X958) digital projector. A Goodmans (Model GPS 350) stereo
audio cassette player was used for playing an audio tape that contained instructions
for a 15-min progressive relaxation.
Procedure
Participants completed the three questionnaires (SSAI, POMS, and PANAS)
before watching the news and immediately after watching the 15-min newscast.
Subsequently, the relaxation group received tape-recorded instructions accompanied
Insert Table 1 about here

Psychological effects of newscasts
5
by slow background music for a 15-min bout of progressive relaxation whilst in a
comfortable seated body position. The control group received a 15-min lecture in
basic research methods, using PowerPoint and digital projection, delivered by the first
author. Both groups then completed the three questionnaires for a third time.
Results
Data were analysed with a group by period mixed model multivariate repeated
measures analysis of variance (Schutz & Gessaroli, 1987 - MRM-ANOVA). The four
dependent measures were state anxiety (SA), total mood disturbance (TMD), positive
affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). The three periods of the study, pre and post-
news and post-relaxation or post-control represented the repeated measures. The
MRM-ANOVA yielded a significant group by period interaction (Wilks’ Lambda =
.552, F (8, 164) = 16.64, p < .001). Follow-up univariate tests revealed a statistically
significant group by period interaction for all the four dependent measures: for SA (F
(2, 342 = 56.97, p < .001), for TMD (F (2, 342 = 36.32, p < .001), for PA (F (2, 342 =
41.65, p < .001), and for NA (F (2, 342 = 27.08, p < .001). These interactions are
illustrated in Figures 1-4.
A set of Bonferroni-corrected t-tests were also performed to follow up the
statistically significant interaction effects and to examine whether watching the news
resulted in changes in the four dependent measures in both groups. These tests
revealed that apart from negative affect, in which the changes did not reach the
accepted level of statistical significance (α = .05), changes in negative direction were
equally significant in both groups in all measures (Table 2). Finally, four Bonferroni-
corrected independent t-tests were performed to establish suspected group differences
(as per visual examination of Figures 1-4) in the last sampling period or 15 min after
relaxation and lecture, respectively. These tests showed that the two groups reported
statistically significantly different psychological profiles in this third sampling period
with a more favourable profile reported by the relaxation group (Table 3).
Discussion
The results of this study show that a random television newscast triggers
increases negative emotions manifested in heightened state anxiety and total mood
disturbance and decreased positive affect. The results in negative affect showed a
similar trend in the same direction but they did not reach the accepted level of
statistical significance. These findings match the limited reports in the literature
(Galician, 1986; Johnston & Davey, 1997; Potts & Sanchez, 1994). Similar to
Harrell’s (2000) report, this research also revealed increased anxiety and decreased
positive affect after watching the news. However, the increases in negative affect,
although a trend was apparent, were not significant, which is in contrast with Harrell’s
results. This discrepancy could be related to methodological differences in the two
research methods whereby in this study a young student population was exposed to an
“unedited” random newscast whereas in Harrell’s study participants of a wider age-
range were exposed to edited (negative and positive) newscasts. Indeed, the current
results imply that an unpredictable or random newscast-watching episode has acute
Insert Tables 2 and 3 and Figures 1-4 about here

Psychological effects of newscasts
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negative psychological effects. Nevertheless, it is known that the majority of the
“average” news is negative, as illustrated by the 59% obtained in the pilot study
associated with this research and also by other reports (i.e., Johnson, 1996).
Therefore, the effects of positive news within a broadcast may not buffer the residual
negative psychological effects of the negative news.
While in a number of cases negative emotions could have an adaptive value in
shaping opinions and prompting action, the everyday person may actively respond
only to a few issues. People’s responses to the bulk of the news my be passive and
contain an element of helplessness (i.e., being against a war but feeling that nothing
could be done). Nevertheless, future studies need to explore individual responses that
go beyond the immediate affective consequences of televised newscasts.
The negative psychological effects of newscasts were anticipated in this study
as per reports from the literature. Consequently the contribution of this study rests
with answering the critical question whether engaging in another activity, based on
the distraction hypothesis (Nolen & Morrow, 1993; Russell et al., 2003), clears the
negative effects of watching the news or whether a directed intervention, such as
relaxation exercises, may be necessary. In the daily life few people engage in
relaxation, meditation, or any other stress management activities after watching the
news. This study, then, demonstrates that anxiety and momentary mood disturbance
do not dissipate with a distraction activity used as control to relaxation intervention in
this research. Indeed, this study demonstrates that engaging in an attention-demanding
or distracting activity (which could be working, reading, other television programme
watching), in this case a lecture does not clear away the ill effects of news watching
for at least 15 minutes.
In contrast to the 15 min lecture session, the psychological measures after the
15 min relaxation exercise have returned to baseline levels. It appears that relaxation
buffers the ill effects of news watching effectively within a period of 15 minutes. It
may be pretentious to prescribe an episode of relaxation after watching a newscast,
but the results of this research demonstrate quite clearly that engaging in an attention
demanding activity is not sufficient to buffer the negative psychological effects. Thus,
distraction is not a method of coping. The persistence of negative psychological states
after watching the news no matter how short it may be (at least 15 minutes in this
study) does disturb the affective state of the individual. This residual negative effect
may in turn affect subsequent activities, social interactions, and overall mood of the
individual. Thus the message of this study is that televised newscasts trigger negative
emotions and some form of active coping may be necessary to overcome them.
Future research needs to explore the duration of the negative residual effects
of the newscasts, since this study was limited to a 15-minute post-news period.
Alternative control and/or coping mechanisms should be also explored because the
emotional influence of the lectures could only be assumed to be neutral. In fact some
lectures may also have an impact on affect. Candidate interventions may be breathing
exercises, listening to music, or watching humour or documentaries. A much wider
segment of the population, as opposed to a student sample, needs to be studied and
cross cultural research is highly recommended. Studies in this area are important
because this research clearly suggests that unless specific or directed coping is
introduced the negative effects of television newscast may not be limited to the
immediate post-watching period, but they could expend into the subsequent periods
and daily activities of the individuals.

Psychological effects of newscasts
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Table 1: Contents of the news seen by the research participants.
Fire brigade call for national strikes
Serial snipers kills 9 and injures 3 in Washington
Government under question over Bali bombing pre-warning
Murder trial of 4 men begins after 3 generations die in house fire
Taxes raised after 7 billion shortfall in public sector spending
Doctors organisation urges government to stamp out smoking
Surprise in money distribution for cancer research
Gun rampage kills 2 at a Melbourne university
Trial begins for women who hired a hit man to kill her husband
One of 4 siblings decides to stay at home to live with their parents
Britain counts costs of the worst gales in a decade
Russia’s day of mourning for 118 killed in theatre siege
Terrorist supporters clash with police in Indonesia
Doctors warn government casualty units are struggling to meet waiting times
Plane spotters convicted of spy charges hold protest in London of their innocence
Government battles to hold off national fire strikes
Dyslexia campaigners call for more help
US teenager kills 2 in shooting spree after criticism of his driving
The trial continues for butler of the late Princess Dianna over stolen letters

Psychological effects of newscasts
9
Table 2: Results of the Bonferroni-corrected paired t-tests performed to
establish the effects of 15 min news-watching on four psychological measures in
the two groups.
Measure
Group
t
df
p
Effect size
State
Anxiety
Relaxation
3.78
79
.001
0.85
Control
5.46
92
.001
1.14
Mood
Disturbance
Relaxation
5.01
79
.001
1.13
Control
7.02
92
.001
1.46
Negative
Affect
Relaxation
1.73
79
.09 (NS)
0.39
Control
1.70
92
.09 (NS)
0.35
Positive
Affect
Relaxation
11.88
79
.001
2.67
Control
8.81
92
.001
1.84
Note: Effect sizes were calculated on the basis of the method described by
Rosenthal (1991).
Table 3: Means, standard deviations (SD in brackets), and independent t-test results
of the comparison of the two groups 15 minutes after watching the news.
Measure
Relaxation
(mean ± SD)
Control
(mean ± SD)
t
df
p
Effect
size
State Anxiety
32.17 (6.50)
41.27 (8.52)
7.95
171
.001
1.22
Mood Disturbance
9.14 (14.10)
22.83 (17.91)
5.62
171
.001
0.86
Negative Affect
10.83 (4.58)
16.87 (7.41)
6.55
171
.001
1.00
Positive Affect
21.43 (6.79)
15.92 (6.67)
5.35
171
.001
0.82

Psychological effects of newscasts
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30
32
34
36
38
40
42
44
Pre-News Post-News 15 min later
Relaxation Control
Figure 1: Interaction effect graph illustrating state anxiety before and after watching
the news and 15 minutes later after either relaxation or lecture (control).
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
Pre-News Post-News 15 min later
Relaxation Control
Figure 2: Interaction effect graph illustrating total mood disturbance (TMD) before
and after watching the news and 15 minutes later after either relaxation or lecture
(control).

Psychological effects of newscasts
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15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Pre-News Post-News 15 min later
Relaxation Control
Figure 3: Interaction effect graph illustrating positive affect (PA) before and after
watching the news and 15 minutes later after either relaxation or lecture (control).
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Pre-News Post-News 15 min later
Relaxation Control
Figure 4: Interaction effect graph illustrating negative affect (NA) before and after
watching the news and 15 minutes later after either relaxation or lecture (control).