Future developments in communication technology promise to have both positive and negative effects on information sources, messages, the media, and audiences. An increased tendency toward monopolistic control, for example, might accompany improvement in information management. A significant problem already in evidence among information gatekeepers, the media, and audiences is hypernegativism--excessive emphasis on messages that are crictical, pessimistic, conflict-producing, threatening, or violent. Research indicates that the media overrepresents bad news and that while the public is highly interested in negative mass media messages, bad news has harmful effects on human emotions, perceptions, attitudes, and behavior. Given these harmful effects, media gatekeepers must reduce the number of unnecessary negative messages and find more constructive ways to present the necessary ones. These constructive approaches could include supplementing unpleasant information with information of a positive or problem-solving nature. Research indicates that the quality of message content is very important to audiences already supersaturated with the sheer weight of information. (MM)