Repetition the cause of shocking journalism
If you ever find yourself watching the news and experiencing extreme déjà vous it may not be such a coincidence after all. You are quite possibly experiencing one of the phenomenons of modern media: over-repetitive use of certain words and phrases.
Take the word shocking for instance. This of course is a word that is used to describe any event that we find tragic, disastrous, disturbing, unpleasant, violent, sudden, unexpected, frightening and so on. Try watching any of the news bulletins on the BBC, who seem to prefer the word shocking to any other synonym, and shocking events may very well be reported. Don’t just take my word for it, see for yourself.
A search for the word shocking on the BBC website site yields 1,674 audio & video results alone. Taken in context of the total number of results to search through and that might not seem like many, but consider some synonyms for shocking and their comparitive audio & video results: startling (22), astounding (21), staggering (65) and appalling (239). So, of 2,021 total occurences, nearly 83% are of shocking.
The BBC are not alone, however, as results from Sky News are roughly proportionate (75%). If, on the other hand, we look at the same results for an organisation with a print background, such as The Guardian (31%) or The Sun (45%) the distinction is much less marked though still significant.
The great advantage that shocking has over its synonyms is probably impact value - this is a word that fairly rolls off the tongue and can be said very emphatically - more so than, say, appalling. This illustrates why the results we have seen are less for print media, where the advantage is less than that gained through screen media.
Something that is far harder to evaluate is how accurately this reflects our everyday speech. Do we simply attribute this to lazy journalism, or is this a symptom indicative of modern English usage? Personally I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between - journalists like to use some words more than others because of their impact value, whilst we probably choose to use the same words more often in our everyday speech for the same reason. Because certain words and phrases have higher impact value, they are more easily imprinted upon us and, as a result, more easily called to mind.
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