Hi Guy and Joseph, Joseph's observation about media coverage of the H1N1 vaccine touches on work I'm currently doing in relation to causal structure in stories. In terms of narrative information, the first piece received seems to act as a foundation, which constrains all information that comes later on the topic (perhaps in a similar way to "entry order effects"). It is very difficult to change the terms of the story once this initial piece has been established. One reason is, the purpose of that first piece is to identify what elements of a situation have agency, and in what ways. It tells the reader what the agents are so they can track causal consequence.
>Assuming the sources of this information are the media and certain "experts", one can see the assymetry in terms of responsibility: if the media are right to be negative, they look prescient; if they are wrong, and all goes well, as appears to be the case, no one cares and their role in propagating the information is quickly overlooked, if not forgotten. If, however, the media information had been neutral or positive, i.e. there was no reason to be alarmed, they might be attacked legally if a flu pandemic occurred. Negative information "sells" better than positive information. This seems to me to be related to the way stories identify agency. As Joseph has noted in the above case, not much agency is attributed to not vaccinating (when in fact inaction could be disastrous). This may be because agency was first identified in terms of the negative effects of the vaccine. In order to change the notion of which elements are agents, you'd have to renegotiate the terms of the discussion, which is too complex for the news genre. There may also be a problem in that in this case, causal consequence is easier to identify in the don't-vaccinate story. It is easier to point to the victim of a bad vaccination than to see the direct impact of distributed lack of immunity in the community. It is more difficult to link the consequence of not doing anything to an identifiable person or victim. Again, the second type of agency doesn't lend itself well to representation in simple story structures, such as those in the news genre. So from my perspective, the asymmetry is in terms of causal roles and information, which then determine whether something is seen to be positive or negative information. Cheers, Beth. > Hi Joseph, > > This is an interesting topic having to do specifically with the way humans > process and weigh the validity of socially transmitted information. I > would like to add "entry order effects" to the positive/negative bias you > describe. I personally view cognition as a process that generates and > relies on heuristic models, which are generally prone to entry order > effects. In this context I think we tend to attribute validity to ideas > or claims that we encounter first. The validity-bar is raised for > subsequently encountered alternatives. Neither of these biases seem to > reflect natural probabilities, although I can imagine that they might have > had (still have?) selective value for our ancestors. > > Regards, > > Guy > > > on 11/12/09 9:26 AM, Joseph Brenner at [email protected] wrote: > > Dear Colleagues, > > Here is a possible, and timely, FIS discussion topic: > > The refusal of large numbers of people, especially health professionals, > to be vaccinated against H1/N1 flu poses the question of the information, > if any, on which they base this decision. > > If one goes back to the beginning of the epidemic, one notes several > systems of highly negative (frightening) information: the new flu might be > extremely dangerous; the pharmaceutical industry will be unable to produce > a vaccine; even if it does, it will be dangerous because not tested > sufficiently for profit reasons. > > Assuming the sources of this information are the media and certain > "experts", one can see the assymetry in terms of responsibility: if the > media are right to be negative, they look prescient; if they are wrong, > and all goes well, as appears to be the case, no one cares and their role > in propagating the information is quickly overlooked, if not forgotten. > If, however, the media information had been neutral or positive, i.e. > there was no reason to be alarmed, they might be attacked legally if a flu > pandemic occurred. Negative information "sells" better than positive > information. > > The really frightening result of the original negative information, > however, is that it seems to override the current positive information, > statements by Ministers of Health, etc: people don't get vaccinated, and > the pandemic becomes more probable! > > My questions are to what extent has the theory of value-laden information > and this kind of dynamic been studied and what kind of public discussion > of it is desirable and possible? I look forward to comments. > > Best wishes, > > Joseph > > > _______________________________________________ > fis mailing list > [email protected] > https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > _______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
