The News: A User’s Manual
An interesting book which explores how humans react to the news on an emotional/psychological level.
It discusses the different types of news: political, economic, disaster, cultural, etc. and how we perceive and relate to them. Some interesting points I gathered:
The true measure of news is if it gets us to care about what has happened.
News articles are tiny vignettes of larger narratives that don’t fit within the space of the article. It’s a tiny slice without context.
The news introduces us to a far wider array of things we could ever find ourselves
The news controls our perception of what “other people” are like.
News tends to concentrate on the immediate; it doesn’t consider other, perhaps more complex issues “off stage”
Pictures are corroborate the story, or advance it. Boring pictures simple agree with the words, while engaging pictures advance – they show us something beyond the words
Book Data
- Author
- Alain de Botton
- Year
- Pages
- 272
- Acquired
- Not recorded
- Open Library
- OL19706784W
- I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
- I own (or have license to) an electronic copy of this book.