Media Induced Fear and Anxiety - Georgetown University: Web ...

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may make life less comfortable. Cohl points out the difference between capitalist societies and underdeveloped nations in regard to this luxury of worry. He asks: Do people in Somalia worry about traces of Alar or other pesticides on food? Do villagers in rural India lose sleep over the possibility of asbestos fibers in the air? Would a small village in Borneo be concerned about the possible electromagnetic fields radiating from the electrical wire recently brought to town, or happy that electricity finally came, bringing with it light and refrigeration, and with them improved sanitation and a better overall quality of life? Are inhabitants of the desert of northern Africa anxious about trace chemicals in their water supply? Hardly. In the industrialized world we have the luxury of worrying about protection from trace elements, invisible radiation fields, minuscule risks from building materials and so forth. 32 While each notion about the origin of modern fears holds some validity, Isaac Marks may be the closest to the answer. According to him, “some aspects of what we fear and how we show it are biologically determined, while others are influenced by individual and group experience.” 33 Just as there is no one definition for fear, there is no single cause or motivation behind fear. These vary for each fear, in each individual, in each society. The causes need to be determined on a case-by-case basis. However, it seems logical to assume that some fears can at least be somewhat attributed to outside sources that influence individuals. ANXIETY: WHEN FEAR BECOMES A PROBLEM If fear is the emotion of uneasiness experienced when a person is in a dangerous situation, then anxiety is the body’s response to fear. Most generally, the term anxiety is 21
used to describe a person’s mental and physical response to a fearful or threatening situation. Everyone experiences anxiety as a normal response to stress; it is a universal human emotion that emerges during certain situations. 34 However, anxiety is not always functional 35 and in some cases can reach disabling proportions from uncontrollable panic attacks to complete social isolation. Unlike the relatively mild, brief anxiety caused by a stressful event such as a business presentation or a first date, anxiety disorders are chronic, relentless, and can grow progressively worse if not treated. 36 While anxiety disorders are ubiquitous across human cultures, they seem to have an especially high rate of incidence in the United States. Statistics show that over 19 million American adults ages 18-54 have some sort of anxiety disorder, and that one- year prevalence for all anxiety disorders among this age group exceeds 16 percent in this country. 37 To fully understand anxiety disorders, one should know how the brain’s normal response to fear operates. Neuroscientists have shown that when confronted with danger, the body naturally sends a set of signals directly to the amygadala, which sets the fear response in motion. At the same time, the body sends another set of signals to the cerebral cortex, the cognitive part of the brain that explains the danger. However, this second set of signals take a more indirect route, and thus the body physically responds to the danger before the cognitive part of the brain registers what is wrong. As a preventive measure for similar confrontations in the future, the learned fear response is etched on to the amygdala. 38 For most people, this fear conditioning of the brain is a useful tool and serves to protect them from dangerous situations. For example, most 22
Page 1 and 2: MEDIA INDUCED FEAR AND ANXIETY A Th
Page 3 and 4: MEDIA INDUCED FEAR AND ANXIETY Laur
Page 5 and 6: CHAPTER 4: ENTERTAINMENT………
Page 7 and 8: “nothing is what it seems,” and
Page 9 and 10: dangers to our health, the environm
Page 11 and 12: assault, from fear of contracting c
Page 13 and 14: shootings, many residents of the ar
Page 15 and 16: conducted by the RAND Corporation o
Page 17 and 18: CHAPTER 2: FEAR, ANXIETY AND RISK W
Page 19 and 20: person but signify something entire
Page 21 and 22: Sports show there is a Sports Disas
Page 23 and 24: was suspended for pretending to sho
Page 25: individual personalities rather tha
Page 29 and 30: 11, may cause people to feel anxiou
Page 31 and 32: when the danger is no longer presen
Page 33 and 34: The possibility of recurrence Altho
Page 35 and 36: anxiety. 67 However, it was sociolo
Page 37 and 38: experts in the field of risk. 73 Th
Page 39 and 40: examine the American media, its con
Page 41 and 42: MA: Perseus Books, 1999). 74 Wilkin
Page 43 and 44: Generally, the term media is meant
Page 45 and 46: entertain rather than inform and it
Page 47 and 48: Television is a rapid information s
Page 49 and 50: more evidence of the severity and d
Page 51 and 52: and hazard from the media than they
Page 53 and 54: environment, our neighbors, childre
Page 55 and 56: H. Aaron Cohl asserts that people l
Page 57 and 58: MEDIA EFFECTS Despite evidence that
Page 59 and 60: of risk factors by presenting graph
Page 61 and 62: seen most recently dominate people
Page 63 and 64: outcome rather than probability sec
Page 65 and 66: viewers are more likely to buy new
Page 67 and 68: Peril (New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 2
Page 69 and 70: CHAPTER 4: ENTERTAINMENT Halloween
Page 71 and 72: television is a contradiction in te
Page 73 and 74: Why, when people understand that wh
Page 75 and 76: movie, the news magazine gave the i
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and a missing intern with whom he w
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as a result of watching a movie. Al
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this country. Perhaps we were so bl
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CHAPTER 5: CASE STUDY - SEPTEMBER 1
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Directly after the attacks, many su
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MEDIA’S ROLE A Gallup Poll conduc
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exposure to such violent images. So
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distress, the only variable with si
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from the WTC, victims running from
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on a television drama like Law and
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NOTES 1 Graham. 2 Marshall, Randall
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increase people’s sense of vulner
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1. APPENDIX A How did you first lea
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5. 4. 16 15% 1 1% 2 2% 1 1% 0 0% 10
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15 14% 0 0% 109 100% 7. Check all o
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9. 108 100% Was anyone close to you
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13. 14. 23 21% 2 2% 109 100% How di
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17. Check all of the following symp
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19. 100% Check all of the following
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21. After September 11, how did you
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25. Gender 1 1% 17 15% 29 26% 39 35
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28. Racial Background 14 13% 65 59%
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Colin. “Real
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Hassett, Afton L. and Leonard H. Si
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Marshall, Marc N. Elliott, Annie J.
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