In light of the tragic events in Paris, columnist Katherina Riesner questions how people consume media and what this means for public discourse.
Normally, my columns are light-hearted, covering joyful topics around student life in Lund. But this week, we are all saddened and shocked by what happened in Paris. All other events and activities fade into the background – a fact portrayed in mass media.
The conversation in news outlets and social media is captured by the horrific acts of a small group of radicalized people. But not for long.
The picture we get presented in the media will not stay. Sooner, rather than later the animal videos, food pictures and happy status updates, tweets and Instagram shots will fill up everyone’s digital feed again.
At first still interspersed with new facts about the terrorist attack but then less and less, receding until the attack itself turns from news into memory, and then to faded memory.
In the past few years, it seems this process of an event turning from newsworthy into mere memory has become hastened and amplified. An attack like in Paris on Charlie Hebdo in January, or as in Boston on the marathon will occupy the first five articles on people’s online news outlets for a couple of days.
All other news will be pushed down (often literally to the bottom of the page) because the public only appears to be equipped to deal with one crisis at a time.
Eventually, the discourse must shift, but it seems to me to do this much more quickly than it used to: Within a week, the story won’t even make the top of the news homepage anymore, much less the front of an actual newspaper.
This process develops even more rapidly within the social networks where the majority of posts has already been replaced by more mundane topics.
As a collective, humans have lost the ability to focus on events in the media (and possibly even in real life?) for a longer period of time. Our news stream is faster than ever.
On a daily basis, we are bombarded with bad news from across the globe because all these events are accessible thanks to the internet and instantaneous communication methods.
Our attention span has consequently decreased.
At first, we tend to soak up every tidbit of information like a sponge, amateur videos, eyewitness reports, political statements – everything gets a hashtag, an upvote, a like. Our mind, however, is like a barrel already full of water.
We consume everything available in our initial interest but this means that previously consumed news spill over and form a puddle of muddled memories at the bottom of our collective perception.
We forget; we distort memory; we make rash decisions. We no longer process; we simply consume. Until the next news cycle comes along and the whole procedure starts all over again. What we need is to start making an effort to stick to stories, follow-up, and reflect even when other events demand our attention.
Find time to halt and think before moving on into the next 24-hour news cycle.
