Noise of News: Background Music and Biases

Have you pretended to be that character from the movies? The one in a car, looking out of the window when a sad song plays on the radio on a rainy day? I have. Music of any kind is a part of our daily lives. Sometimes music sends a chill down my spine, triggering goosebumps, physiologically stimulating a dopamine rush.

Even though the “movies I have watched” list is not as exhaustive as many of yours, I usually look forward to listening to background scores and tracks. I remember walking out of a 007 movie feeling like Bond himself. Why? Sam Smith’s title song, Writings On the Wall, made me feel that way. The imagery for this track was freshly associated with the context within which I heard it- action, drama, in a heightened emotional state. Sometimes, I feel like Rocky Balboa while working out to Europe’s Final Countdown. My point is, that merely listening to a song evoked a heightened intrinsic feeling of Bond-like worth in me.

Like many of you, depending on my task, I choose what genre of music to listen to. While reading, I prefer listening to instrumentals- Hans Zimmer (Interstellar), Jesper Kyd (Assassin’s Creed games) or Ramin Djawidi (Game of Thrones), something atmospheric, working without music works too. While working out, I listen to pumped-up beats syncing to my workout rhythm- like A$AP Rocky, Calvin Harris, AC/DC..you get it! Spotify’s algorithm knows my music choice better than my bandmates, rightly recommending new tracks that I would like. The app also curates mood and activity-specific playlists. It’s got a playlist for every moment- birthday, a date, road trip, gymming, running, toilet beats, you name it, you’ll probably find a playlist. Before and while taking action, music sets the “mood”, directing and motivating some of our behaviours.

Music is one of the atmospheric variables that influence decision-making, as seen in consumers (Kotler, 1974). MacInnis and Park define the “fit” of music as consumers’ subjective perception of the music’s relevance or appropriateness. Areni and Kim (1993) researched the influence of background music on shopping behaviour, concluding that playing classical music like The Mozart Collection, Mendelssohn Piano Concerto #2, at a wine cellar led to the purchase of expensive wines while playing Top 40 like Robert Plant and Nirvana led to the purchase of cheaper wines since this genre of rock music was an incompatible cue, representing a less refined environment to purchase wine (Konecni, 1982). We tend to associate classical music with higher class, wealth and status, which could have influenced customer behaviour. In another experiment, playing German music in the background led to a higher sale of German wine. Similarly, playing French music led to higher sales of French wine. The influence of music on triggering a response behaviourally is often subconscious.

When we listen to a tune, we rely on the body of all the music we have heard until now, leaving us in anticipation of what comes next. Our over-reliance on memory leads to stereotypical musical reactions (Williamson, 2013). Music lays a foundation for expectation, reducing the cognitive efforts required to judge a situation and what comes next. Let’s take any horror movie as an example. The tempo gets progressively higher and louder, leaving us with an expectation of an incoming jump scare. When suspenseful, thrilling music plays during a scene, we assume something to happen that will change the course of the storyline.

Let me try and make sense of background music in a different setting. The Indian news prime time packages are an interesting case to study. Let’s consider the 9 PM show to be the commercial product. It is slightly different from a daily Netflix series- the show is non-fictional, factual (well..), and produced in public interest, allowing viewers to form their opinions. In the West, I observed that news presentation is very different from that in India. Calm anchors, facts presented in headlines, nothing dramatic, really. It’s just the news.

TV news in India is as spicy as its Vindaloo curry! The shows begin with dynamic visual packages summarising the news in focus on a particular day. Watch this news package from India Today’s NewsTrack for context - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNEq1IrXn78&t=68s

The package opens with intense, dramatic, suspenseful, thrilling background music. Personally, the last time I heard a similar track, so thrilling, was when Thanos was about to destroy the universe with a click of his fingers in the Avengers movie. The death of a superhero, chaos and violence, romance- an emotional atmosphere was further stimulated by the background scores.

So, when news shows open with such dramatic music, viewers’ opinions may be influenced by several psychological biases. Anchoring bias is a cognitive bias that causes us to rely too heavily on the first piece of information we are given about a topic, a person or a situation. Humans tend to process newer information from the reference point of anchors, affecting objectivity in perception. Research has shown that anchoring can influence courtroom judgements where prison sentences assigned by the jury and judges can be influenced by providing an anchor.

The Primacy Effect is defined as the tendency to remember the first piece of information we encounter better than information presented later. A strong influencer, companies, governments and individuals use mediums like TV, radio, social media, and print advertising to present viewers with that first bit of information. Opinions can be easily manipulated based on their first impression of a person, object or situation. In the case of NewsTrack, since the background music is the first bit of information we receive, it acts as an anchor, triggering the Primacy Effect, paving way for subjective interpretation of stories which are supposed to be factual, non-provocative and non-pervasive. We are more likely to show the primacy effect when we are tired than when we are wide awake, and when we are distracted than when we are paying attention (Richter and Kruglanski, 1996). By 9 pm we are our lazy selves.

Once the package is broadcasted to the world, the anchor then invites panellists to join the discussion. To avoid these biases, an individual should be given time to gather as much information as possible before making a decision and forming an opinion. When opinions are formed before facts are presented, it clouds our judgement, adding a lens to how we will perceive the facts that are yet to be presented.

The spicy format of news presentation is surely entertaining, but I ask a general question, is news supposed to be entertaining? The format triggers our deep-rooted biases, leading to suboptimal decision-making, judgment and perception.