Hard Wired for News Revisited: Biology, Culture, Deviance, Time, and Reality

Abstract

The essay addresses these questions: What is news? Why do we have news? My answers involve the synthesis of theories from biology and culture; I also show how the constructs time and reality can be used in news studies. Deviance is my primary construct, which in biology is defined as a threat or something novel in the environment. In studies of culture, deviance is defined according to whether the rules and norms of a society are followed. People are innately hard wired to survey the environment and attend to threats, but threats are defined by culture. The brain’s circuitry prioritizes information about negative stimuli, which results in more negative news than positive or neutral.