How use of words, context drive perspective

They use rhetorical devices – such as emotional appeals, metaphors and repetition - to make their messages memorable and connect with voters.

Language shapes the peoples’ understanding of the economy and political issues. The choice of words frames debate, highlights policy, and portrays opponents in a specific light. Words themselves can constitute harm such as in hate speech.

And words are driving negativity in our society today. Politicians are using negative language to exploit a weird combination of inherent psychological biases and environmental factors, to amplify our pessimism and conflict. 

Some literature suggests that we were "hardwired" to focus on negative information as a survival mechanism. It helped our ancestors identify and avoid dangers.

Today, this bias causes people to dwell on insults more than compliments, losses more than gains, and a single piece of bad news, than the dozen good ones.

Past trauma, unresolved personal pain, and general insecurities are often projected outward as bitterness, judgment, and aggression. Low self-confidence leads people to criticize others to feel better about themselves.

Many individuals struggle with emotions such as anger, fear, and frustration, leading to outbursts or withdrawal, as a coping mechanisms.

News reporting focuses on drama, conflict, and alarm to generate clicks and grab attention. This feeds the negativity bias, creating a skewed perception that Kenya is struggling more than it actually is.

Social media rewards outrage and sarcasm with more engagement (likes, shares), than reason and empathy. The imagined anonymity of the internet emboldens users to behave more negatively than they would in person. And because we stay within our groups, it creates echo chambers.

Current concerns about cost of living, job security, financial instability, societal expectations of success, can create chronic stress and a sense of helplessness. Both manifest as cynicism and negativity.

Read: Lack of jobs, poor economy and intolerance

We learn behavioural and thinking patterns from those around us. So being consistently exposed to negative sentiments and role models leads us to adopt similar pessimistic outlooks.

Kenyan political and media strategists often exploit the negativity bias by using fear and outrage to engage and mobilise audiences. This deepens societal divisions and makes compromise seem impossible. Witness the on-going by-elections.

Yet, in all instances, context infuses perspective, itself communicated through words. As we debated the causes of current negativity with friends from the education sector last weekend, we marveled at how clean Kisumu City is.

We were impressed by the road infrastructure. We marveled that Kisumu is thriving, while Nyeri seems stagnated, yet the city is often caricatured as the hotbed of street protest while Mt Kenya is seen as too posh and businesslike to picket. But as interchanges spring up in the lakeside City, Nyeri retains its colonial one-street character. 

Holding government to account, including through street protest, has not stopped Kisumu from being a first-class city! Context. Perspective.

After hosting the Africa Smart Cities Alliance Summit two months ago, Kisumu is now the hub for smart growth on the continent. Murang’a County has adopted the smart towns programme. While Laikipia, where the idea came earlier, has thrown it into the dustbin, moth balling it on the altar of political expediency.

While receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Annual Journalism Excellence Awards, Mr Lee Njiru told me a gem.

Communication can build or destroy, he said. A report of you in the national park with three women, could imply that you are amorous, bringing your name into some disrepute. And, as a statement fact, it would not be actionable in court. Except of course you were with your wife and sisters, on a game drive after church! Context drives perspective!

Negative communication is driving negative sentiment. Negativity influences behaviour. Negative sentiments means businesses and consumers remain restrained, and demand weak. Rather than “just words”, what politicians say matters.

Ndiritu Muriithi is an economist and partner at Ecocapp Capital.  He is also the chairman of KRA and former governor of Laikipia County. Email: [email protected]