By Judy Minot • Secretary; Communications Committee Co-Chair
We’re awash in headlines. They beckon us from the home screen of our smartphones, our inboxes, social media feeds, and on many websites. Whether or not we read the underlying news articles, we see the headlines. They influence us more than we realize. Awareness of our human bias and how digital media manipulates us can help us be stronger environmental champions.
We’re Only Human
Two relevant terms help illuminate the mental processes at work when we read headlines: confirmation bias and source amnesia.
Confirmation bias describes the tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs. We dismiss articles, perhaps never reading them, if the headlines point to a different conclusion (e.g., “The Politicians in New Jersey Are Corrupt”; “Wind Power Will Never Be a Viable Source of Clean Energy.”)
Source amnesia means we tend to remember the things we heard or read, but not where or how we encountered them. As we surf the net, we may read a memorable headline. As related headlines appear, the story builds in our minds. The more headlines, the more believable it seems. We forget what the sources were or that we never read anything but the headlines. It’s easy to see how the viral effect of certain headlines contributes to their believability.
Headlines: Not What They Used To Be
The shift to digital sources for our news means we “consume” news differently. Media scholars contrast “sit-back media”—such as watching TV news—with “lean-forward media,” where we interact by opening apps, scrolling, selecting, and even commenting. Increasingly, we get our information from lean-forward digital news sources, where we may read dozens of headlines before clicking on a single story.
In print media, the role of the headline is to sum up the content of the story. There’s an expectation that the headline relates truthfully to the article content.
The job of the digital headline, on the other hand, is to persuade you to click on or share the article. For the publisher, that click or share is how they make their income. The more clicks, the more they can charge for ads.
Because online content providers need your eyeballs, they create headlines that get them. They will write controversial-sounding headlines if their data show viewers will click on those headlines. Since viewers often share articles without reading them, the headline can be more important to a company’s revenue than the article itself.
An Example
A recent New Jersey environmental story provides a great example. Scientists have been concerned in recent years by a sharp and unexplained increase in whale strandings along the Atlantic coast. Many of these whale strandings have taken place in New Jersey. This winter, in December and January seven whales washed up on the New Jersey coast.
Suddenly, news articles began to appear, first in New Jersey-based news, then Philadelphia, and finally nationally. A typical headline was this one in USA Today: “Whale Deaths Along NJ East Coast Prompt 12 Mayors to Call for Offshore Wind Moratorium.” Or this from Politics & The Nation, “Dead Whales Raise More Uncertainty for Wind Power Push.” What was happening? Opponents to offshore wind had seized on these whale deaths, blaming them, with no scientific evidence, on the building of wind turbines.
Every scientist quoted said there was no relationship between offshore wind and whale deaths. Several of the whales had died from being struck by a vessel. The headlines, however, focused only on the controversy. The articles were widely shared, which caused more and more news organizations to pick up the story.
Understandably, many good people care about whales! Reading only the headlines, anyone could be forgiven for believing there actually is a connection between whale deaths and offshore wind. But the headlines were misleading and contributed to what many have called a disinformation campaign against offshore wind power. While the reporting may have been accurate—that some mayors were calling for a moratorium on wind development in connection with the whale deaths—reading just the headlines would lead a reader to draw the wrong conclusions about the merits of wind power.
Armed with a little knowledge of our human biases and the business side of online news, we can be more informed consumers of media, and more effective environmental advocates. Don’t take headlines at face value, even from reputable news sources. Especially if a headline raises your eyebrows, don’t trust it. Read the article and draw your own conclusion.
The NJ Chapter is working to shift the narrative, and mobilize in support of offshore wind. Please sign up for our action alerts to stay informed.
Resources
Action Alerts: bit.ly/41jUpsd
USA Today: bit.ly/3xLTxPo