When No News Is Good News: Inferring Closure for News Issues

In: Journalism & mass communication quarterly: JMCQ, Band 77, Heft 4, S. 760-787

Abstract

Evidence reviewed here suggests that people are motivated to achieve closure on news stories that are left unresolved by retrospectively inferring a plausible resolution to the issue or event using their cognitive schemata. Data from 264 respondents revealed that people do infer closure under certain circumstances, particularly when they are less involved in an issue. Interestingly, the results also show that when closure inferences are made, people tend to believe that the issue improved rather than worsened, lending support for the claim that people have a natural "positivity bias" and that, literally, no news is good news.