The media value violence

Abstract

In the current system of media, events of a varied nature work as inputs in the production of news.  Those facts that can attract a major number of consumers, raise places in the hierarchy, provided that its presence makes possible a better receipt of the journalistic product. The communication approaches how, within this logic, violence is considered as a desired news value. This privilege leads to an “hyper-representation” of violence in media, not comparable to the violence that society supports in reality.

Since violence is considered to be a desirable news value, sometimes, sensationalism helps to exaggerate its presence in order to intensify the informative hook.

Communication contributes some examples of how media tighten reality towards its more violent manifestations and not only in the information more inclined to this process  as accident and crime reports but also in policy or sport.

Admitted the inherently human nature of the violence, the communication states the schizophrenia of the current society: on the one hand condemns violence formally (in law and morality), and on the other lives flooded with facts and violent images, favoring them in its informative system.