Confronting Media Nihilism: How Transparency Builds Meaning During Crises

Abstract

The traditional roles of the media in a democratic society including informing the public and facilitating social unity are changing rapidly. Factors such as media conglomeration, a “business” view of news, more sources and greater customization of those sources results in news morphing into entertainment and opinion, greater selectivity in our news sources and more conformity in our exposure to ideas. On top of the changing role of media in a democratic society is a condition we call Media Nihilism, the rhetoric of crisis and failure or the tendency to exaggerate and “spectacularize” an event. This occurs when the media take the crisis out of its original context, give it an importance or impact it doesn’t have and actually help create a crisis where none exists. Media Nihilism robs society of the context needed to make intelligent decisions, creates a common culture of the expectation of failure and fails to inform the public completely of all aspects of the crisis. We argue that transparency is the public relations strategy that confronts this phenomenon during crisis. Realizing that being transparent demands trust and courage from leadership, we submit that public relations has the functional responsibility for gaining that trust and inculcating in leadership the courage to be transparent.