People buy perceptions. Malcolm Gladwell did a great job of illustrating this in his book Tipping Point when he described the role of graffiti cleaning action in combating the crime wave in New York back in the 1980s. It was, by all accounts, a matter of focusing on perceptions that the NYC chose as the way of creating a feeling of more security and crime-rate reduction in what was becoming an unlivable city, full of fearful residents.

More importantly, the strategy was successful. By choosing a few variables to focus on, and creating the perception that things were improving (among other things, graffiti were disappearing from public places and metro carriages as fast as they were appearing indicating that the city was winning the 'war'), things really improved.

If this sounds like a bit of new-age mambo-jumbo, think again. The role of perceptions in collective human psychology is a powerful one. Public relations practitioners understand this well. As do companies, organisations and individuals that use them to support whatever ends they want.

You may wonder why I am writing about perceptions. In fact, I was inspired by two things.

First, the Innovation Attitudes in Australia Survey results, which we've published on the site this week, revealed a very interesting sentiment -- quite a few survey respondents made a number of scathing remarks about the role of negative media reporting in creating a community less willing to co-operate, innovate and progress.

And then, I read a piece on reporting suicide, published in this week's issue of The Economist (page 62). It talks about the role of media reporting in increasing the number of youth suicides in South Wales. In it, the South Wales police and Oxford University's Centre for Research were quoted as saying that by keeping the subject of youth suicide, with a great deal of detail attached, in the public eye over time contributed to the number of subsequent deaths. It also contributed to the number of copycat suicide cases. The media, the article argued, 'tipped' the already vulnerable youngsters over the edge. The reporting of these issues, over and over again, and in great detail created what Malcolm Gladwell would call the 'tipping point' for a social trend to take shape.

As a "fresh" migrant in Australia, I remember spending the first few years here passionately arguing with everyone that some level of media censorship was not a bad thing. (For the record, as a young journalist, I was suspended for oposing censorship on a story of great social relevance, and I would like to stress that I am not arguing that censorship is something that should be practiced as a matter of course.) At the time, most of my debate-partners thought of me as a slightly derranged product of a socialist society, and the one that didn't quite get the noble idea that is the freedom of speech. Yet, I maintained then, as I do now, that freedom of speech is not the same as the imperative to tell only the bad news. What this means is keeping bad news in perspective. 

This is not to say that bad news should not be reported. But understanding how over-reporting of bad news can create undesirable social trends is a very interesting and important task for all of us.

Socially, this is a delicate game. Being able to report corrupt behaviour in order to tackle it is something any society should cherish. But creating panic when panic is best kept at bay is also something a society should be able to do. Recent stock-market fluctuations are a case in point.

The media, of course, is also the fourth pillar of democracy. It is meant to be there to 'keep the bastards honest'. Yet, its social influence is so pervasive these days it would be foollish not to criticise their overwhealming bias towards negative stories. Because the continous barrage of negative impressions must have some effect on the society, its values and its behaviour by creating a number of 'tipping points'. This is not to say that we should settle for telling lots of sweet, white lies to the world and ourselves (even though the media are rather guilty of that as well, but that's a different story). Yet, the question of how much of bad news is too much is certainly worth our collective consideration. 

As I said at the beginning of this blog, people buy perceptions. And the perception that there are only bad news to be reported is certainly not a benign one. Not for any society.