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

frequency of viewing, did account for some of the raised feelings of fear and anxiety
about the attacks.
The nature of the attacks aroused feelings of vulnerability and helplessness, and
likely made many people wonder about what may happen next. The deliberateness and
seeming randomness of the attacks raised levels of uncertainty, where people could not
pinpoint what to do to avoid becoming another victim. As Jeff Rosen, an associate
professor at the University of Delaware explained, “If you’re afraid of something that
you know what it is, you can avoid it, or diminish it in some way. This, there’s nothing
to diminish.” 7 Dan Glaser, a social worker and lecturer with Masters and Johnson
Clinical Psychiatry, has had several patients who did not have direct experience with the
September 11 attacks, but suffered from trauma. The major impact the media images
had for these patients were feeling of helplessness and powerlessness. They also
triggered past traumatic memories and recreated intrusive images and thoughts. Some
experienced increased agoraphobic responses where they avoided public places, and
others had increased mistrust and suspicion of others. Seeing the video images made the
event seem more real, and even those individuals who didn’t see it directly live but saw
the live video were pretty dramatically impacted; the images made it feel like it was
happening in real time. 8 Avoidance, behavioral changes and irrational fear, among other
symptoms of anxiety, all resulted from images gleaned from the media.
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