Words Matter in Changing Public Perception
Do you ever wonder why some public safety causes get so much publicity, and others seem to fall below the radar? Pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities rise every year in the United States, yet there is little public outcry to improve road safety for those groups. A recent study conducted by the Texas A&M University Department of Public Planning suggests that how news articles that report on such fatalities are written may be part of the reason. A move to rephrase reporting on pedestrian versus automobile accidents could result in bringing the subject to the spotlight; when it comes to reporting accidents, words matter.
Working in conjunction with Rutgers University Public Policy and Planning scholars, the researchers heading the study found that changes in crash reporting could result in a crucial shift in public awareness of pedestrian and bicycle incidents. How crashes are reported could change the perception from that of tragic but isolated events to a public health problem that is preventable.
The study looked at the perception of readers who were presented with an article that shifted the focus from the victim/pedestrian to the driver of the vehicle. It was found that patterns in reporting affected the reader’s feeling of who bore responsibility for the incident. Specifically, shifting the focus from pedestrian to vehicle operator-focused language heightened the perception that the driver was to blame.
Subtle Shifts – Big Changes
A subtle shift in language demonstrated these results. For example: “a pedestrian was killed after being struck by a car” was reported as: “a vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian.” Another example: a sentence including the phrase “a vehicle jumped a curb” was altered to read, “a driver drove over a curb.”
The respondents who read the pedestrian-focused version were much more likely to blame the pedestrian versus the driver. Those who read the driver-focused account found blame with the vehicle operator. There was another writing style in which the incident was described thematically, and readers received more information about the greater context in which the incident happened. In those thematic versions, the reader was more likely to find fault in “other factors,” such as infrastructure features like small or nonexistent bike lanes, for example.
In summary, the study suggested that shifting writing patterns could result in large-scale injury prevention and lives being saved due to the ability of language to alter public perception. The study does bring to light the power of journalism to influence blame and innocence. The intent of the study was not to urge writers to shift the focus of such reporting to blaming drivers, but to point out that the way most articles on the subject were written lead to readers attaching blame to the pedestrians. In other words, the “default” reporting method for crash stories that were researched for this study was the pedestrian-blaming voice. The study suggests that it may be beneficial to move away from blame language and instead report on the circumstances that caused the crash. Especially since, in many cases, when the article is written, it is not known who was at fault for the incident.
Perhaps more objective reporting methods could result in a public push for safer passageways for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Watch YouTube Video: How Words Change Minds: The Science of Storytelling. In the following Ted Talk video, Dr. Nate Kendall-Taylor explains how to communicate ideas that can drive social change.
Stockton Personal Injury Lawyer
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