RESEARCH 9 - The use of hard news and soft news

HARD NEWS & SOFT NEWS

Hard news and soft news are types of news stories that we hear. Hard news are stories that deal with serious topics or events, and are reported immediately. Whereas soft news is background information or human-interest stories. Some examples of hard news are things such as politics, war, economics and crime, while some samples of soft news are things like arts, entertainments and lifestyles. We need the two different types of stories otherwise it wouldn’t balance the stories out because we couldn’t have everything in news being about peoples lifestyles and about celebrity gossips, but we couldn’t handle everything being serious too, because it would always make us feel under pressure with everything going on. So having them both allow people to have a break from one another and still keep them updated on current affairs around the world and in the showbiz world too.

 

Although most of us complain about the negativity of the hard news, we always want to know about the outcomes and whether it has been resolved or not, because of how harsh the news can be sometimes. Though some people believe that this could be a cause of depression because they could work themselves up emotionally from always looking at these critical situations and then start making unwise decisions themselves. Does this mean that the media is negative? Some people may argue that this is right because as humans we are always seeking the threat of bad things rather than focusing on the good so we can confront the bad and get that over and done with. Also, many studies have shown that our negative brain tripwires are far more sensitive than our positive triggers, and we tend to get more fearful than happy this just shows why we are focus on the hard news, because this way we see how other people are being affected and how to help them because with soft news you can only be happy or excited but you can’t do anything about it to help.

Moving on to the soft news, this allows people to take a break from listening to upsetting things in the news and just be able to relax and listen to stories that make them laugh or excite them, in general soft news entertains its audience. The use of soft news lets the audience be able to see how other people cope with their own lives especially if their lives aren’t that exciting. Some people could also argue that soft news sometimes causes people to gossip about others because there will always be different views and although gossiping is wrong it can have its positives. For instance it allows people to have their own special bonds with one another due to their like and dislikes and almost puts them into their own social groups because of what they specifically think about a certain topic.
 

Overall, knowing the difference between hard and soft news helps you develop a sense of how news is covered, and what sorts of stories different news media tend to publish or broadcast. This can be important when you want to write articles or influence the media yourself. There is no choosing which one is more important because they are both needed to even out stories and appeals to so many different people.