It’s something we’ve all experienced: A numbness to news of atrocities across the globe.

Now Scott Maier, a professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, will team up with psychology professor Paul Slovic to see how media coverage of such crises can be improved.

Maier and Slovic were awarded a $4,000 research grant for their proposal, “Overcoming Psychic Numbing: Creating Better Media Coverage of Mass Atrocities.”

The project is one of four chosen this year by the Genocide and Mass Atrocities: Responsibility to Prevent Initiative, and is funded by the Savage Endowment of International Relations and Peace. The initiative strives to harness the experience of academics, policymakers and advocates to develop lasting change in international and domestic contexts (Send an email congratulating Maier and Slovic for their award).

In order to discover the effectiveness of media coverage of atrocities, Maier and Slovic will conduct a content analysis of news stories and psychological testing of the emotional effect of stories on a panel of readers.

Using the idea that people consider the death of one person a tragedy and the death of many a statistic, Maier and Slovic will explore how different types of coverage of atrocities influence reader response. For example, when covering the genocide in Darfur, was it more effective for journalists to find the “right” person to illuminate the larger story or to highlight the staggering statistics and the impacts of genocide?

The findings will offer guidance for journalists as they work to find the most effective way to draw attention to brutalities in the news. 

"I am grateful and humbled to take on this cross-disciplinary research,” Maier said. “We hope the findings will offer guidance on how to get beyond psychic numbing and compassion fatigue when drawing attention to the world’s most disturbing and intractable conditions."

- from the UO School of Journalism and Communication