Sensationalism is playing up a story in order to attract more people to it. The story could be very important or not important at all.
Sensationalism does cause harm. It hurts the credibility of the media source and can also be harmful to the public.
It is sad when a media outlet leans on a story because of shock value and star power. That's what happens with the pressure to have something on the air 24/7 or to get people to watch the local news instead of Friends reruns. I think it is odd that everyone looks on sensationalism as negative but the media still does it. It would be interesting to see what the general public would say about sensationalism or if they have ever even thought about it. I would say the fact that we are students of broadcast media makes us more aware of what is really going on in the media.
Sensationalism has a negative impact on society. It detracts from the value of issues that could actually impact our lives. It also shines the spotlight on negatives and can even make negative things seem glamorous. In another class we talked about a series the New York World did on the Ku Klux Klan. The World's objective was to take on the Klan and expose all of their wrong doings. In the end, the World played a huge role in taking down the Klan but there were problems. The series was definitely sensationalized. There were full page ads blaring the coming of the articles. The series ran for three weeks straight with huge amounts of readers. With all this success there was a downside. Membership in the Klan actually grew. The World was essentially giving the Klan free advertising. People who had never even heard of the Klan became members. Luckily, the Klan did decline in the end thanks to the World and other newspapers. Like I said earlier sensationalism sometimes has the glamorizing effect on bad things.