The Neuroscience of Good Journalism: How Constructive Journalism Uses Information to Empower with Maren Urner

The Neuroscience of Good Journalism: How Constructive Journalism Uses Information to Empower with Maren Urner

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?

(Conversation recorded on March 31st, 2025)

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.

Show Notes and More

Watch this video episode on YouTube

Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.

---

Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future

Join our Substack newsletter

Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners

Jaksot(357)

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: How Artificial Superintelligence Might Wipe Out Our Entire Species with Nate Soares

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: How Artificial Superintelligence Might Wipe Out Our Entire Species with Nate Soares

Technological development has always been a double-edged sword for humanity: the printing press increased the spread of misinformation, cars disrupted the fabric of our cities, and social media has ma...

3 Joulu 20251h 40min

Reimagining Ourselves at the End of Our World: Kinship, Interconnection, and Spirituality in the Metacrisis with Samantha Sweetwater

Reimagining Ourselves at the End of Our World: Kinship, Interconnection, and Spirituality in the Metacrisis with Samantha Sweetwater

Over the past decade, the world has become increasingly chaotic and uncertain – and so, too, has our cultural vision for the future. While the events we face now may feel unprecedented, they are roote...

24 Marras 20251h 33min

Directional Advice for the (More Than) Human Predicament | Frankly 114

Directional Advice for the (More Than) Human Predicament | Frankly 114

Over the past decade, the world has become increasingly chaotic and uncertain – and so, too, has our cultural vision for the future. While the events we face now may feel unprecedented, they are roote...

22 Marras 202540min

Two Ways of Knowing: How Merging Science & Indigenous Wisdom Fuels New Discoveries with Rosa Vásquez Espinoza

Two Ways of Knowing: How Merging Science & Indigenous Wisdom Fuels New Discoveries with Rosa Vásquez Espinoza

For centuries, modern science has relied on the scientific method to better understand the world around us. While helpful in many contexts, the scientific method is also objective, controlled, and red...

19 Marras 20251h 22min

11 Discoveries That Changed My Worldview | Frankly 113

11 Discoveries That Changed My Worldview | Frankly 113

In this episode, Nate weaves personal reflections into an exploration of the human predicament, unpacking a series of chronological insights that have reshaped his worldview. What began years ago as a...

14 Marras 202537min

Will We Artificially Cool the Planet? The Science and Politics of Geoengineering with Ted Parson

Will We Artificially Cool the Planet? The Science and Politics of Geoengineering with Ted Parson

Global heating continues, despite the increased use of renewable energy sources and international policies attempting otherwise. Even as emissions reduction efforts continue, our world faces more extr...

12 Marras 20251h 21min

Hacking Human Attachment: The Loneliness Crisis, Cognitive Atrophy and other Personal Dangers of AI | RR 20

Hacking Human Attachment: The Loneliness Crisis, Cognitive Atrophy and other Personal Dangers of AI | RR 20

Mainstream conversations about artificial intelligence tend to center around the technology's economic and large-scale impacts. Yet it's at the individual level where we're seeing AI's most potent eff...

5 Marras 20251h 53min

The Quadruple Bifurcation | Frankly 112

The Quadruple Bifurcation | Frankly 112

In this week's Frankly, Nate outlines four bifurcations that are likely to underpin the human experience in the near future. While the broad biophysical realities of energy and ecology underpin our ci...

31 Loka 202522min

Suosittua kategoriassa Tiede

rss-mita-tulisi-tietaa
rss-poliisin-mieli
rss-lihavuudesta-podcast
utelias-mieli
tiedekulma-podcast
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-opeklubi
docemilia
hippokrateen-vastaanotolla
mielipaivakirja
radio-antro
rss-laakaripodi
rss-mental-race
rss-luontopodi-samuel-glassar-tutkii-luonnon-ihmeita