Feeding our Fears

It is widely accepted that reporting media such as newspapers, television news, and radio news bulletins convey a general impression of negativity. Not much is needed to prove this, after all, almost every headline across the world every day features some tragedy or disaster or inadequacy of some kind.

Make no mistake, this is no accident but rather a very deliberately chosen way of representing the news and getting our attention. As highlighted by New York Times journalist David Carr in his article Stoking Fear Everywhere You Look; “The recession was actually not officially declared until last week, but the psychology that drives it had already been e-mailed, blogged and broadcast for months.” Or, in the words of writer K. Lauren de Boer, “From overblown crime statistics to exaggerated germ scares to plane wrecks, a wide array of groups—including businesses, advocacy organizations, religious sects, and political parties—benefit and profit from promoting fear” Rock star Marilyn Manson stated it this way, “It’s a campaign of fear and consumption … keep people afraid and they’ll consume.”

What might be less apparent, however, is how come fear is such a tool in the hands of media. Fear has the particular property of getting and holding the attention, it is chilling and riveting in quality. This very quality makes fear useful for those who want to get attention and sell. A less obvious effect of fear, however is that it lowers general awareness. Fearful attention on a thing may make it more “visible” but that attention is fixed and anxious, tending to exclude observation of other environmental factors or thorough examination of the object of the fear itself. This is why in times of crisis, the persons who are turned to for help and are successful in resolving the emergency at hand are those who can calmly face up to the situation and devise a logical plan of action.

What is fear selling in modern-day society? Fear sells conformity, and all the the little material must-haves to accompany it. Fear is not uniform across age groups and social boundaries, but it’s exploitation is – for every possible individual or social fear, there is a control mechanism built to exploit it and obtain either consumption of a product or agreement of the electorate. “If you have pimples you won’t get a boyfriend but Proactiv will fix that… if you don’t have this new X-Box game your friends will shun you and play elsewhere… your biggest rival will beat you in gym class unless you buy Sketchers… the economy will go up in flames unless you vote Obama… Social Security will let you down unless you invest with Chase… 55 people murdered! (Pay attention!)”

The social cost of this approach to mass media is exorbitant, since confidence is a building block of the economy, and a continual search for negative news on the part of media sells one and all nothing but the idea of a dangerous environment. Creative ideas and constructive projects are individual creations, and they become rarefied in a society when the attention of all is cynically fixed on the latest scandal.

Then why is it so hard to ignore the constant bad news, or simply convince ourselves to go on about our lives cheerfully despite it all? In the words of two British statisticians, Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams, “It is almost as if we have to be afraid of something, as if we carry about in our heads a bucket of worry that we are compelled to fill with whatever’s available.” Our evolution makes it so that we are at our best when driven by necessity. We operate closest to our maximum potential either when prey to great need or because of a constructive high-emotional-level drive towards accomplishment, such as in love or sports or the arts. Living in the comfort of modern industrialized society deprives us of an optimum level of stimuli, and it is this lack which is exploited by the media when they use fear to get and hold our precious attention, which is the commodity they then sell to advertisers.

In the final analysis, though, it is an individual choice to think for oneself and find the true facts for oneself. I bet people feel more cheerful when weaned off a daily diet of bad news, and cheerful people usually think clearer and come up with better solutions to their problems. They focus on the things they can change.