Mean World

I can’t believe the news today

I can’t close my eyes and make it go away…

 

When you see the latest public opinion polls and see that by a significant majority, Americans are not feeling optimistic right now, it’s no wonder. As the summer of ’14 winds down, it is not a particularly cheery time in our history.

 

From protests in Ferguson, MO to beheadings of American journalists by a ruthless terrorist group to news of the continued out-of-control spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa, it is not a time of good news. The globe, it seems, is an unhappy place right now.

 

All of this as we head into the week in which we’ll mark the 13th  of 9/11 and the 50th birthday of the controversial Daisy Commercial.

 

Over the weekend, we heard news that DNA evidence may have finally allowed forensic scientists to solve the Jack the Ripper case some 125 years after the grisly murders occurred on London’s East End. Still, if you read anything the case, the momentary diversion brings you right back to where this edition started.

More tragic and graphic details. It may seem to some folks that this is 1968 all over again.

 

It fits right into the Cultivation Theory developed by communication professor George Gerbner in the 1970s. Gerbner, who was Dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, theorized that people who are heavy viewers of television, develop a viewpoint that the world is full of bad news. He called this the “mean world syndrome.”

 

And make no mistake, it’s mean right now. Maybe meaner than anytime in recent memory.  Quite a backdrop for this year’s mid-term elections.

These days, it would seem, the late professor would have plenty of evidence to bolster the theory. Look no further than a Kroger store in Memphis.

 

Folks, we need to change the narrative. We need a little good news.

 

Sometimes, I feel the need to unplug; to just block out all the gloom and doom. Perhaps this is why Lisa and I have been enjoying vintage programs like Hogan’s Heroes and other classic tv shows from our childhood. After work, when we sit down to dinner, we pull up the DVR, select a show and by-pass the evening national news broadcast.

 

Come to think of it, Hogan was popular in 1968. Maybe we needed a hero then, too.

 

Other folks, I’m sure, have other pastimes that allow them to escape the barriage of bad news – whether it be the very popular BBC programming we hear so much about, or a day-long tailgating outing at a UT football game or a wonderful day at church (like we celebrated yesterday).

 

Workouts, volunteerism, household projects – these are all great activities that could serve to help avoid the mean world.

Whatever your method is, I hope you are able to focus on some good news as you relax this evening. Don’t let the bad stuff get you down.

 

As for me and all the bad news, I know nothing, NOTHING!

JG

Originally posted 9/8/2014