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News consumption has increased with the advent of social media and personal devices. In this experimental study, we examined the effects of news exposure on emotional states. Participants (N=128) were randomly assigned to positive or negative news exposure conditions, completed pre-test and post-test measures of emotions, and were asked about their willingness to read more. There were large effects of negative news on emotions, and a medium effect of positive news. Negative news had the greatest effects on sickening people, increasing anger, and reducing happiness and enjoyment. Positive news had the most improvements on nervousness, worry, and loneliness. Both groups nonetheless showed the same willingness to read more. News consumption may readily impact emotions, with negative news having more powerful effects than positive news. These findings bring attention to problematic news consumption and the importance of self-regulation and digital literacy. In conclusion, this study, which lies at the intersection of journalism, communication, and the psychology of social media and emotion, examined the effects of news media on emotions using an experimental approach that can be easily implemented by interdisciplinary researchers in an emerging field of “affective news”.
Chew et al. (Wed,) studied this question.