Fear Culture Research Paper

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear”. Fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger if we didn't feel it, we couldn't protect ourselves from genuine threats. But often we fear situations that are far from life-or-death, and consequently hang back for no good reason. Traumas or bad experiences can trigger a fear response within us that is hard to suppress. This is why it can be such an incredibly important tool for others to wield especially politicians. Often they are able to manipulate the general population and push upon us their agenda due to it. “Fear is a mind killer” an evolutionary trait with a purpose, an emotion for survival and in recent studies an inhibitor of knowledge. The media also plays a vital part

in fear mongering in politics. It shapes the views of society in Australia and worldwide. All we have to do is look to America and observe the numerous shootings that take place almost on a weekly basis or the war on terrorism that has spread to the rest of the world.

”The fear of the unknown “ plays a major role in politics and is a key reason as to why we are so easily manipulated. The fear culture that is so prevalent in America has been adopted by Australia and its effects are detrimental to our Australia’s psyche. If we are to progress not just as a country, but as a species, we must learn that “The survival of our democracies depends not on our capacity to hit back at the terrorists, but on our capacity to think for ourselves” and not allow the media or politicians think for us.

“If It Bleeds, It Leads” Fear is undeniably present in traditional media, heightening-anxiety and depression in its viewers. They employ a variety of practices to ensure that fear is always fresh in our minds. Often, these practices present misleading information and promote anxiety in the viewer. The first notable case of persuasive practise they utilise is the “teaser”. In order to grab the viewers’ attention, news casters persuade the viewer through divulging the so-called solutions for reducing the identified fear, for example if I were to ask you/state in an ad something like this” "What's in your cosmetics that YOU need to know about? Watch 8 news at 6 to find

out” wouldn’t you want to watch it. Another pattern in newscasts is that the breaking news story doesn't go beyond a surface level. Meaning the need to get to the story first, in order to get the ratings, often causes reporters to avoid thorough fact-checking. As the first story advances to a second level in later reports, the reporter amends the inaccuracies and missing elements. As the process of fact-finding continually changes, so does the news story. What journalists first reported with intense emotion or sensationalism is no longer accurate. This causes a fragmented sense of knowing what's real in the viewers mind , which sets off feelings of futility and feebleness , which are experiences known to worsen depression. An additional exercise that heightens anxiety and depression is the news station's use of the crawl, the scrolling attention-grabbing ticker that appears at the bottom of the television, communicating "breaking news." The crawls frequently contain fear-driven material, bombarding unsuspecting viewers. Individuals who watch news-based programming are likely to see one, two, or even three crawls scroll across the screen. The multitasking required to read the crawls and comprehend the actual newscast comes easy to some viewers, whereas others report feeling over-stimulated. The success of fear-based news relies on presenting dramatic anecdotes as an alternative to scientific evidence, promoting isolated events as trends, depicting categories of people as dangerous and replacing optimism with pessimistic thinking.