DEATH IN THE MEDIA AND TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY: THE EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO DEATH-RELATED NEWS

Abstract

Due to the sensationalist nature of the media, death is a topic that is covered frequently in the news. Even if people do not read the news constantly, it is still likely that they will come across certain stories because of the various platforms that news can be accessed on. Terror management theory states that when people read about death, they are reminded of their mortality and how much death is on one’s mind increases. Based on prior terror management theory, when someone encounters a death-related news topic, their level of death-thought should increase. We tested this by randomly assigning participants one of five articles; four were death-related and one was a control. After reading the article, death-thought accessibility (DTA) was measured using a fill-in-the-blank activity immediately after reading the article and after a delay. Overall, we did not find any significant difference in levels of death-thought between the death-related article and the control article even though DTA was still higher for the death-related articles. DTA was also higher in the proximal condition compared to the distal condition. More research needs to be done to further explore this topic.