Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 17, 1990 TAG: 9003172451
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NORA FRENKIEL THE BALTIMORE SUN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Who is Violeta Chamorro?
a) Secretary of the Treasury
b) Ivana Trump's mother
c) Newly elected president of Nicaragua
Define reunification
a) A new open-trade policy promoted by the Japanese
b) A New Age religious movement headquartered in rural Oregon.
c) The policy of unifying East and West Germany
In both cases, the correct answer is C. But if you selected incorrectly, don't count yourself alone. In the current news climate - where each day seems to bring the fall of another regime or the advent of another political leader - some are saying: Stop the news whirl, I want to get off. It's a time of information overload and information anxiety.
"Information anxiety [reflects] the gap between what you think you should understand and what you actually can understand," observed Richard Saul Wurman, author of the book "Information Anxiety," in which he suggests that information consumers stop trying to keep up by cutting back and focusing on the information essential to their lives.
"The news is increasingly inaccessible to people because it's complex, geographically diffuse, it cuts across cultures and the terminology is difficult," said Everette Dennis, executive director of the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University.
"I think people are having terrible coping problems. . . . People who make the news decisions are making assumptions about the audience - about what they know and want to know - when in fact they're also overwhelmed."
Jeff Greenfield, media critic for ABC News, said, "Of course sometimes I feel overwhelmed. . . . Sometimes, when I'm sitting here going through seven newspapers and the computerized political hot line and all the magazines and books I'm supposed to keep up with, the idea of a real citizen with a real job also trying to keep up strikes me as mind-boggling."
Almost everyone you talk to seems to be complaining about the same thing: too much information, too little time.
"I feel like I'm drowning," said Ghita Levine, an associate director of news and information at Johns Hopkins University.
Every morning she tries to follow the morning news shows. Then during the day she reads and scans the local and national newspapers and a variety of journals and magazines.
"Every night, I'm carrying home loads of things to read but I'm too exhausted," she said. "I keep clipping things and Xeroxing them and planning to read them eventually, but I just end up throwing it all away and feeling guilty."
Herman and Estelle Brenner, retirees who live in Guilford, Md., begin their day with the morning news programs, read the paper, watch the "McNeil-Lehrer Report" and the local newscasts, and finally go to bed with Ted Koppel and "Nightline." They complain about TV's repetition and distortion of the events going on in the world.
"It's a whole world in front of your eyes in a few seconds and it's all the same superficial level, the same pictures and words," Estelle Brenner said. "You never feel you learn anything in depth."
For example, she said, "A few weeks ago Panama was everywhere in the news and now it's disappeared, replaced by something new. I know things still must not be stable there but you never find out what's going on."
TV is the primary source of news for many people but broadcast news has obvious limitations: It's difficult to have information sink in when frequently it's off the screen in 30 seconds. An image of South African black nationalist Nelson Mandela, for instance, may dissolve into one of deposed Panamanian leader Manuel A. Noriega.
"[Media analyst] Marshall McLuhan years ago used to talk about information overload and everyone thought it would be a psychological problem," Dennis said. "But I think so far people have coped by turning off. That's the danger - the lack of demand for hard news and the kind of information that makes one truly informed."
But if they are "turning off" the broadcasts, they're still following some news. In addition to the dramatic political events that have dominated the headlines of the past year, there has been news of considerably less importance that has captured America's attention. Actor Rob Lowe's sex tapes. The defection of Nadia Comaneci and her married companion. Or the breakup of Donald and Ivana Trump, for instance.
"The fact that the Trumps could push Nelson Mandela off the front page is astonishing," Dennis observed, "but people need news on a human scale and this is a soap opera."
He believes people followed the Berlin Wall story because it offered great visual imagery of the wall coming down and it was told on a human scale. But once reunification became a story about economics, viewers stopped watching.
As for the flood of entertainment-celebrity news, Dennis said, "In the massive repetitive diffusion of information, there's often trivial information. There's a competitive sense that once something's hot, everyone has to pick up the story and do something quickly.
"Tom Cruise, for example, goes from being a non-entity brat packer to being a great and gifted actor. That's part of the publicity machine. . . . It's pure advertising for the most part."
Experts say one consequence of information overload is fragmentation. While some people may turn off completely, others may shift their focus to one area - sports for instance - and away from others such as foreign and national news.
Any advice for the anxious information consumer who wants to keep up without overloading?
Don't turn off completely, Dennis said. "What you don't know can hurt you. There's a compelling reason to master information and news. Clearly there will be better job and financial opportunities. Other high stakes will be missed by people if they don't master and connect information."
Master information by becoming selective, he added. Read only what you have to read.
Greenfield said he scans the papers to decide quickly if a story will tell him something he doesn't already know. Others say they flip the dial. And Brenner, who admits to being compulsive about keeping up, offers a bit of common-sense advice: Don't watch everything you see.
"I feel obligated to turn on the 11 o'clock news," he admitted, "but the truth is, sometimes I just tune out until the weather report."
by CNB