Ep 174 | Maren Urner
Maren Urner – The Neuroscience of Good Journalism: How Constructive Journalism Uses Information to Empower
Description
The psychological effects of media consumption and keeping up with the 24-hour news cycle are vast. It can sometimes feel impossible to stay educated on current events without also feeling hopeless, disempowered, or even enraged. Worse, the incentives and structures of modern media outlets seem more and more geared towards capturing our attention at any cost… including our mental health, trust in one another, and even open societies themselves. Given this, is there a way to get back to a form of media and journalism that helps us feel empowered, and if so, how do we do it?
Today, Nate is joined by neuroscientist and best-selling author, Maren Urner, to discuss the critical role of journalism in democracy, the importance of rebuilding trust in media, and how neuroscience can inform our understanding of media consumption. Maren makes the case for constructive journalism – a more balanced and solutions-oriented approach to reporting – as a powerful antidote to the relentlessly negative tone of traditional media. She also highlights the urgent need for systemic change in the way journalism operates if we want to foster a more informed and empowered public.
How do our deeply ingrained cognitive biases shape the way news is produced and consumed? Could journalism evolve to become a force for collective action and positive change, rather than just another profit-driven industry competing for our clicks? And in a world where our attention has become one of the most valuable – and contested – resources, how can we take greater ownership over the media we choose to engage with?
About Maren Urner
Maren Urner is a neuroscientist and, since September 2024, Professor for Sustainable Transformation at Münster University of Applied Sciences and Head of the new Master’s program in Sustainable Transformation Design. In 2016, she co-founded “Perspective Daily,” the first ad-free online magazine for constructive journalism. She led the editorial team as editor-in-chief and served as managing director until March 2019. After her time at Perspective Daily, she taught as a professor of media psychology at the Media University of Applied Sciences in Cologne until August 2024.
Maren has been a columnist for the Frankfurter Rundschau since September 2020. Her three books, End the Daily Doomsday, Out of the Eternal Crisis, and Radically Emotional: How Feelings Make Politics are SPIEGEL bestsellers. She is the winner of the 2023 BAUM Environmental and Sustainability Award in the science category.
In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President
That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher
We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF
This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
Download transcript00:00 – Maren Urner
04:14 – Free information is key to Democracy, Correlations between Democratic erosion and attacks on Press Freedom
05:07 – White House determining which news outlets are allowed
05:29 – Democracy, Open society, Democracy and Open society
06:53 – Propaganda and authoritarianism
08:11 – Psychology vs. Neuroscience, The implications of the fields’ disconnection
08:37 – Neuroscience of trust
08:53 – Psychology of trust
10:07 – Why we’re drawn to bad news, Loss aversion
11:41 – Constructive Journalism
12:25 – Nonverbal communication
13:11 – Nora Bateson, TGS Episode, Warm Data Labs
14:27 – Exaggeration of negative news and its consequences
17:06 – Confirmation bias
19:23 – Authority bias
20:10 – Effect of the color of pills
20:30 – Placebo Effect
21:28 – Increase in negative journalism over time
23:08 – Attention Economy
23:59 – How profit influences what we see in the news, Media’s focus on money
24:20 – The Superorganism
24:38 – Moloch
25:21 – Current incentives of journalism, Incentive structures of social media platforms
26:21 – Primary function of the brain is survival
27:26 – Planetary Boundaries
27:56 – Temporal discounting
28:47 – Cognitives bias awareness can change decision-making
31:05 – Iain McGilchrist, TGS Episode 1, TGS Episode 2
31:10 – Viktor Frankl, alleged quote, origins of the quote
32:03 – Behaviorism vs. Cognitive psychology
35:15 – Freedom of speech
38:12 – Cognitive functioning is dependent on emotional and physiological safety
39:48 – Cultivating rest and presence amidst the metacrisis
44:40 – Left brain/Right brain
44:12 – Social and emotional early education learning programs
49:55 – Neuroscience of altruism, Genetics of altruism, Altruistic infants study
51:13 – The Carbon Pulse
52:45 – News media and Learned Helplessness, Learned Helplessness
53:27 – Learned Helplessness, Self-Efficacy, and Personal Growth, Self-Efficacy
54:32 – Apathy amidst the Metacrisis, Another example
55:40 – Quote from The American Journalism Handbook
57:10 – Studying the potential of Constructive Journalism
59:33 – Perspective Daily (the Constructive Journalism magazine that Urner co-founded)
1:00:42 – David Bornstein, Solutions Journalism Network Fixes Column in The New York Times
1:01:04 – De Correspondent, The Correspondent
1:06:05 – The importance of Storytelling
1:07:44 – Feelings typically impact action more than thoughts
1:11:33 – C40 network
1:18:28 – Master in Sustainable Transformation Design at FH Münster
1:19:28 – Active Listening, Additional resources from Maren:
Activity to reduce barriers to listening
Clear communication correlates with patient satisfaction
Activity to improve intercultural communication
1:20:04 – Maren’s Media List: Voice of Witness
