Is irrational risk-avoiding behavior related to news media’s heightened attention for the negative and exceptional? Based on the theoretical approaches of mediatization and cultivation, it is hypothesized how news media can present an overly negative and biased reality that can have a severe impact on society. Focusing on the case of travel accidents, we argue that a disproportional increase in news attention for low-probability high-consequence aviation accidents can distort audiences’ risk perceptions such that driving is inaccurately perceived as a safer transportation alternative to flying, with potentially harmful consequences. This study accordingly documents results from time-series analyses (1996–2017) on US media attention for aviation and road accidents related to real-world data on travel behavior and fatal accidents. The over-time patterns expose how news media follow their own mediatized logic and reality: Negative incidents—i.e., both aviation and road accidents—become more prominent in the news over time, rather than accurately reflecting real-world trends. Next, since air travel is statistically the safest transportation mode, disproportionate attention for aviation accidents is argued to especially create a problematic distorted worldview among audiences. Accordingly, findings show how more media attention for aviation accidents is related to relatively more road traffic and more fatal road accidents in the subsequent months. We conclude that the media’s systematic overrepresentation of rare aviation accidents can overshadow the more substantial risk of (long-distance) driving. This paper illustrates how a distorted media reality can potentially result in severe consequences in light of audiences’ ill-informed fear perceptions and irrational risk-avoiding behavior.

中文翻译：

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新闻媒体会杀人吗？有偏见的新闻现实如何掩盖真正的社会风险，航空和道路交通事故案例

非理性的风险规避行为是否与新闻媒体对负面和例外的高度关注有关？基于媒介化和修养的理论方法，假设新闻媒体如何呈现一种可能对社会产生严重影响的过度消极和偏见的现实。以旅行事故为例，我们认为，对低概率高后果航空事故的新闻关注度不成比例地增加可能会扭曲观众的风险认知，从而导致人们错误地将驾驶视为比飞行更安全的交通工具，并可能带来有害后果. 因此，本研究记录了时间序列分析（1996-2017 年）的结果，即美国媒体对与旅行行为和致命事故的真实数据相关的航空和道路事故的关注。随时间变化的模式揭示了新闻媒体如何遵循自己的媒介化逻辑和现实：随着时间的推移，负面事件——即航空和道路事故——在新闻中变得更加突出，而不是准确地反映现实世界的趋势。其次，由于航空旅行在统计上是最安全的交通方式，因此人们认为对航空事故的过度关注尤其会在观众中造成有问题的扭曲世界观。因此，调查结果表明，媒体对航空事故的更多关注与随后几个月相对更多的道路交通和更多致命的道路事故有关。我们得出的结论是，媒体对罕见航空事故的系统性夸大可能会掩盖（长途）驾驶的更大风险。