The Terrifying Truths behind Online Negativity
What happens when social media conversations go beyond the platform?
When checking Twitter on the 3rd of July 2019, a nightly ritual, my timeline was focussed on one topic and one topic only, the announcement by Disney that they had cast Ariel for the live action The Little Mermaid movie.
Twitter, like many other social media platforms, thrives in an event like this. The floor, or Public Sphere, is opened for everyone to express their opinion and the site’s mission to “give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers” is fulfilled. As most social media debates go, the dialogue on this casting was not black and white. It was however focussed on race, with the role of Ariel being played by a Halle Bailey, a young African American actress.
Moving from my timeline to the hashtag #thelittlemermaid, it was clear that the response to the news was overwhelmingly positive. Despite the support Bailey was mostly receiving on the platform, the tweets that tended to gain the most traction outside of the site were the one’s criticising the decision to cast her. This was seen mostly in the news articles released on this topic, with keywords in headlines including “negativity” “backlash” and “criticism”, basing their discussion on the negative tweets about the casting. The conversation on Twitter therefore had a life of its own beyond the platform, a life that was inaccurately representing the majority opinion in favour of statements that skewed negatively.
This is not a one-off occurrence, but rather a lucrative trend. In the era of the 24/7 news cycle clicks are currency and the choice that news sources make to frame stories in a negative light comes down to biology. This phenomenon is known as negativity bias and it describes the compulsion we as humans have to pay more attention to negative or “bad news”. This has led to publications framing stories to promote the negative aspects in headlines and silence the positive.
Negativity bias is appealed to often by social media, not only through click bait headlines (consider the headline on this article for instance), but in the way social platform’s algorithms are designed to capture attention. While the application to social media is a growing area, the use of negativity and outrage has historically defined the industry.
Negativity bias explains the concept behind the idea of the outrage rhetoric in media. Most commonly seen in the reporting of politics, outrage media has evolved from a tool to sell newspapers to become a tool to direct internet traffic and increase engagement. Whether it be in traditional or new media, the intention of outrage media is the same: to stir up a reaction from the audience. A reader is more likely to click on a headline which elicits an emotive response, and a headline targeting fear and anger provoke the strongest reaction. Back to The Little Mermaid, the media’s narrative that Bailey’s casting resulting in public outcry is far more compelling than the story of hundreds of thousands of people tweeting out their support.
Media outrage and negativity bias is statistically proven, with headlines including negative superlatives shown to perform 30% better than positive ones, and it is easy enough to see for yourself. A brief trip to Google News with the search term “and people are mad” will bring up over 18 pages of results using this exact phrasing in the headlines. From the New York Marathon to The Bachelor to biracial dolls, thousands of articles have been written in this style, all using a slew of tweets as their supporting evidence, generally ignoring the concept of a counter argument.
While outrage media has been a tried and true tactic over the span of the industry, the never ending discussions on social media, particularly Twitter, have added a substantial amount of fuel to the fire. For journalists today, an ideal, click-worthy story is a simple Twitter search away. A narrative of choice can be selected and the story is then able to write itself.
The announcement of the 3rd of July may seem like a mild example, I mean, it’s just a Disney movie! But even in this case there were consequences. Bailey herself was led to speak out on the apparently overwhelming backlash to her casting, backlash which made up such a minimal part of the response, and the majority opinion was somehow lost in translation. The general takeaway from this narrative was that the race conversation on Twitter was far more divisive than the reality, overshadowing an important moment in pop culture which could have brought people together.
And thus is the case of Halle Bailey and The Little Mermaid. The legitimate amount of backlash on social media was irrelevant. The mere fact that there were any criticisms created a wealth of opportunity for news sources to profit off the human nature to respond to negativity. So just like The Little Mermaid, this is a story as old as time, and after all, it is just a story! But what happens as social media continues to grow and publications become selective about the public opinions they share on more serious topics to appeal to readers? Well, I believe it’s a slippery slope between Part of Your World and propaganda.
