soft news

soft news, journalistic style and genre that blurs the line between information and entertainment. Although the term soft news was originally synonymous with feature stories placed in newspapers or television newscasts for human interest, the concept expanded to include a wide range of media outlets that present more personality-centred stories.

Traditionally, so-called hard news relates the circumstances of a recent event or incident considered to be of general local, regional, national, or international significance. By contrast, soft news usually centres on the lives of individuals and has little, if any, perceived urgency. Hard news generally concerns issues, politics, economics, international relations, welfare, and scientific developments, whereas soft news focuses on human-interest stories and celebrity.

Studies by the Global Media Monitoring Project, begun in 1995, found women reporters more likely to be assigned soft-news stories about entertainment, arts, and culture. Such stories were also more likely to feature women in traditional, rather than professional, roles. Beginning in the late 1990s, media critics and some scholars expressed concern over the so-called feminization of the media, exemplified by a Wall Street Journal announcement that it was setting aside more space for “family news.” Researchers David K. Scott and Robert H. Gobetz documented an upward trend in the amount of soft news carried in the three major network newscasts between 1972 and 1987. Critics such as former U.S. vice president Al Gore suggested that a de-emphasis on hard-news stories characterizes the bottom-line mentality of media conglomerates that want to maximize profits by satisfying the largest number of readers and viewers. In any case, there is evidence that the shift from hard news to soft news has not stopped the decline in news audiences.

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Beyond the cultural dynamics of what makes news “hard” or “soft,” Thomas E. Patterson of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University argued in his public-policy paper “Doing Well and Doing Good” that soft news “weakens the foundation of democracy by diminishing the public’s information about public affairs and its interest in politics.” His argument, based on a two-year study of American news habits, concluded that soft news distorts the public’s perceptions of politics and public affairs. He argued that evidence indicates that as interest in public affairs declines, so does interest in news, and, therefore, what is good for democracy is also good for the press.

Others have challenged that notion, suggesting that the effects of soft news differ, depending on the audience’s degree of interest in politics and foreign affairs. The least politically engaged citizens are more likely to view soft-news programs and outlets.

Although the effects of soft news on political knowledge and interest were debated into the 21st century, features, entertainment, and lifestyle stories continued to be a substantial part of print and broadcast news content. A 2006 report, The State of the News Media, indicated that, in the United States, “Celebrity/Entertainment” and “Lifestyle” stories made up some 17 percent of broadcast stories by duration and nearly 10 percent of print stories by length while “Election” and “Government” stories made up 15 percent of broadcast stories and 21 percent of print stories.