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European Journal of Communication
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News

Are `Sensational' News Stories More Likely to Trigger Viewers' Emotions than Non-Sensational News Stories?

A Content Analysis of British TV News

Rodrigo Uribe

School of Business, The University of Chile, Diagonal Paraguay 257, Of. 1104, Santiago, Chile, ruribe{at}unegocios.cl

Barrie Gunter

Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK, bg45{at}le.ac.uk

This article considers whether `sensational' news stories are intrinsically more likely to elicit emotional responses in audiences than other TV news stories. The research analyses a sample of British televised news in respect of empirically validated attributes, to identify the presence of particular content elements that audience research has shown to possess emotion-eliciting capabilities. The results show that news stories traditionally classified as `sensational' — a term that implies a dramatic and therefore emotion-arousing imperative — do not necessarily contain more emotionally arousing features than other types of news story. Only crime stories (among the most frequently occurring `sensational' news categories) and, to a limited extent, political stories (a classic `non-sensational' news topic) provide clear manifestations of the presence of high and low emotion-laden attributes. Moreover, those topics containing more emotion-laden material are not the same over time or across public and commercial TV channels.

Key Words: content analysis • emotionality • sensationalism • tabloidization • television news

European Journal of Communication, Vol. 22, No. 2, 207-228 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0267323107076770
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