Soft media

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Soft media comprises media organizations that primarily deal with commentary, entertainment, arts and lifestyle. Soft media can take the form of television programs, magazines or print articles. The communication from soft media sources has been referred to as soft news as a way of distinguishing it from serious journalism, called hard news.^[1]

Soft news is defined as information that is primarily entertaining or personally useful.^[2] Soft news is often contrasted with hard news, which Harvard political scientist Thomas Patterson defines as the "coverage of breaking events involving top leaders, major issues, or significant disruptions in the routines of daily life".^[3] While the purposes of both hard and soft news include informing the public, the two differ from one another in both the information contained within them and the methods that are used to present that information. Communicated through forms of soft media, soft news is usually contained in outlets that primarily serve as sources of entertainment, such as television programs, magazines, or print articles.