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1130-03

14 February 2025

Article Comparison Assignment

Tuning Out the News? The Neuroscience Behind the Numbness We Feel is an article

written by psychiatrist and director of the Stress, Trauma, and Anxiety Research Clinic at Wayne

State University, Arash Javanbakht. The article opens with Arash divulging a common trend

among his patients with fear and anxiety: they are often sick of reading political news. Arash

then broadens his claim by stating it’s not just his patients. According to a 2020 Pew Research

Center study, this “news fatigue” is on a major rise across America. He attributes this widespread

aversion to political news to a couple of different factors, such as the rise of an “us vs them”

mentality, the echo chamber tendencies of social media circles, and the ingraining of political

beliefs in American identities. All of these lead to a form of internalized fear, known as learned

helplessness, defined as the brain’s tendency to simply give up when stressed by something it

thinks it can’t control. Arash ends the article on a positive note by offering some advice on how

to help with this learned helplessness, suggesting readers should channel their anxiety into

productivity in order to relieve stress and make a positive impact (Javanbakht, 2025).

The article “Commitment to the Team” inside of the Journal of Media Psychology:

Theories, Methods, and Applications raises the question of how perception of intergroup conflict

serves as a bridge between news media coverage and political polarization (McLaughlin, 2018).

The hypothesis provided by the author of the article, associate professor at Texas Tech

University Bryan McLaughlin, is that the media’s emotionally manipulative emphasis on

political animosity is, in fact, one of the direct causes of America’s heavy political polarization.

The experiment conducted by Bryan strongly supported this hypothesis and found that engaging

with news coverage of political conflict directly led to an increased feeling of self-identification

with one’s political party, as well as a sort of dehumanization of those with differing political

opinions. The key takeaway of this research is that by creating a perceived conflict, political

news outlets are actively reinforcing group polarization. In other words, the constant over

exaggeration of the divide between America’s two political parties is actually one of the major

reasons the divide is growing larger in the first place. As people read article after article about

how their side is absolutely correct, and their opposition is completely incompetent or even evil,

these ideas become ingrained within them, often leading to more conflict that the media can then

report on in an endless feedback loop. The research study notes that while this is a major issue, it

is only one factor contributing to America’s political divide. More research is needed on both the

other causes of political polarization and potential solutions.

Returning to the popular media article, its claim that learned helplessness is the main

cause of news fatigue is very justified (Javanbakht, 2025). The article is written by a

psychologist who specializes in fear and anxiety, which lends some credibility to his claims and

shows that he has experience in what he’s talking about. The article also references three

separate Pew Research Studies that all support its claims. Another strength is that the oldest of

these studies is only five years old, reducing the risk of historical bias caused by changes in

culture. In addition, an experiment by American psychologist Martin Seligman is briefly

summarized to define learned helplessness and relate it to Arash’s claim. The article is concise,

easy to understand, and well researched, all of which make it easy to digest the author’s claims.

The only real criticism of the article is that partway through the author uses his own book as a
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source in an unnecessary place and it comes across as self-promotional rather than a reference

that’s necessary for his argument.

Comparting the two documents, one key difference is that the research study contains

tables, graphs, and the direct procedure used for the experiments. By reading the research study,

you can follow along with every single thought that the researcher had before, during, and after

the experiment, allowing you to potentially try and replicate the results yourself (McLaughlin,

2018). Both the popular article and the research study have potential benefits to reading one over

the other. The popular article is very easy to read and provides a well-supported conclusion in

just a few minutes. Conversely, the research study is long, uses technical language, and may take

multiple readings to properly understand its contents. However, because of those downsides, the

research article is also a lot more particular and in depth, providing a much greater understanding

of the topic and directly encouraging readers to think for themselves about the meaning of the

results rather than just telling them what to think. When determining whether to read a popular

media article or a research study, consider the following, if your goal is to quickly gain a simple

understanding of an issue, then the popular media article should be your go-to choice, while

anyone looking to truly understand and potentially even contribute to the study of a topic should

read the research study.

Both the popular media article and the research study that I read ended up being

very well researched, offering strong evidence to support their claims. Since both documents

covered similar topics, comparing them helped me to understand the structural and stylistic

differences between popular media articles and research papers. This, in turn, clarified when one

type of writing is more appropriate than the other when trying to understand an issue.
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Works Cited

Javanbakht, A. (2025, January 2). Tired of trump news? the neuroscience behind the numbness |

US news opinion. US news. [Link]

trump-fox-msnbc-exhaustion

McLaughlin, B. (2018). Commitment to the team: Perceived conflict and political polarization.

Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 30(1), 41–51.

[Link]