Collective loss of reality, damage caused by the media

Are there any similarities between the Ehec virus, the third stock market crash in just a few years, the ever-inflating rescue packages for Greece, Italy and other countries that are actually bankrupt, the U-turn in nuclear policy and presumably also the rampage of a madman who terrorized Norway? At first glance, very little, except that these are events that have absorbed all our attention in recent weeks and months. At second glance, quite a lot. After all, there are good reasons to put forward the bold thesis that these events would not have happened at all or would have happened very differently if the media and journalism had played their role as they should in the much-vaunted public interest.

This "public interest" is, of course, criminally neglected in day-to-day business. If journalists had done their research before trumpeting alarms, the Ehec circus would not have happened. If the watchdogs had really paid attention, there would have been no need for the bailouts or the last stock market crash. It would simply never have gotten to the point where the political elites around Europe believe they can make laws that others should obey, but not themselves. Perhaps the euro would never have existed, but at least journalists would have warned us in good time that the bankruptcy vulture was circling over several countries. If the media had not kept looking the other way, sometimes for years, the energy transition in Switzerland and Germany would have been initiated less abruptly and with less absurd results - but much earlier. Because then it would not have been triggered by Fukushima, but by the question of how to dispose of and store nuclear waste, which has always remained unresolved. Conversely, if the media in France and the Czech Republic did less court reporting, hardly any nuclear power plants there would be able to continue producing electricity after Fukushima, which they have been feeding into the grids of neighboring countries ever since. And the terrorist attack in Norway is also difficult to imagine if other attackers had not previously sought and - quite predictably - received worldwide media attention. Is it an exaggeration to assume that the media, instead of informing us, often contributes to our individual and collective loss of reality?

We are all overwhelmed by the reality constructed by the media. We can confidently assume that a growing proportion of the population is dreaming of simple solutions - and probably also secretly dreaming of the strong man. This is a highly explosive situation that endangers democracy. The end of the world seems imminent - once again and actually every day. On the one hand, there is the staccato with which the media and journalism take our breath away. But television also distracts us from reality with its soaps and allows us to escape into virtual worlds. It "infantilizes" us, as the semiotician Umberto Eco noted years ago. The same could probably be said of free newspapers or YouTube. Even if media impact researchers rightly warn against overly simple

Explanatory models warn that the effects of stultification and neglect can hardly be denied when television, with its orgies of violence and self-exposure talk shows, is in constant use not only as a baby sitter, but also as a sitter for small children, adolescents, the unemployed and the elderly.

Certainly, we should not fall into the mistake of the ancient Greeks of punishing the bearers of bad news. However, in view of the desolate situation and the increasing amount of bad news, it is time to publicly address the collateral damage caused by the media on a daily basis - precisely because they not only carry out neutral news transport work, but often sensationalize news, and because the media wind machines repeatedly scare us. The following connection cannot be proven with absolute certainty - but there is much to suggest that political populism, which has begun its march through the institutions in Western democracies and is either already in power or threatens to become a majority, would have far less chance of success without the populist background music of many media outlets. The damage that tycoons like Berlusconi and Murdoch - but also many media entrepreneurs who avoid the limelight like the devil avoids holy water - have done to our societies is certainly considerable. It is probably far greater than what the media themselves have made visible when they occasionally scandalize media moguls.

And: The loss of reality already begins at school - when teachers fail to explain such connections because neither economics nor media studies are sufficiently anchored in the curriculum.