It seems lately that we are bombarded by social and international crises and threats. Incurable diseases and clandestine terrorists are lurking, and social institutions are cracking. Our sense of security is in question. In this edition of The Moral Is, Fresno State Communication Professor Diane Blair explores this rhetoric of fear, which she argues has reached new heights in our public discourse and deliberation.
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“The only thing we have to fear is, fear itself.” Uttered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt more than 80 years ago, and yet it seems more relevant today than ever. Ebola, Islamic terrorists, the historic drought—all topics of frightening headlines and debates.
Scholars have debated the use of fear appeals since antiquity. Plato lamented appeals to emotions, and fear in particular, as corrupt influences on logic and reason. Contemporary scholars have examined the ways in which fear appeals have been utilized to promote racism and xenophobia, crack down on civil liberties, and stifle healthy democratic dissent.
Others, like Aristotle, argued that our emotional responses are often driven by reasoned persuasion and understanding—sometimes there are good reasons to be afraid, or angry, or joyful. Contemporary advocates for HIV/AIDS prevention, anti-smoking campaigns, and environmental activists see fear appeals as effective in promoting awareness and in gaining audience compliance toward a worthy goal.
Fear can be a rational and strategic response to danger, but because fear creates discomfort, audiences naturally tend to avoid or resist such appeals. That’s why for a fear appeal to work, the persuader must also convince the audience they are capable of doing something meaningful in response to the danger posed.
But what happens to us as a society when we live in a culture that seems driven by the language of fear? Our tendency is to overreact and over exaggerate. We may be drawn to impulsive and unwise behaviors.
However, Arizona State University Professor David Altheid says much of the fear we experience is unwarranted, and is actually the result of calculated decisions by the news media and entertainment industry to catch our attention. And in many cases, they encourage people to fear things over which they have very little control. For example, nearly 40% of Americans believe there will be a large outbreak of the Ebola virus in the U.S., and more than 25% worry that an immediate family member will come down with the disease. These fears exist in spite of reassurances from the CDC and most every other infectious disease expert that an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. is highly unlikely.
Rather, it is the constant and sensationalized media coverage of Ebola that makes the threat seem imminent, and that promotes an unhealthy response to the situation—at the slightest suggestion of risk, often unsubstantiated, children are pulled out of schools, speakers are banned from university campuses, politicians call for travel bans and mandatory quarantines, and sick employees are told to obtain medical confirmation that they are not infected before they return to work.
Overreaction to a fear can create more havoc than the original threat. Reasonable concern is healthy and not all fear appeals are problematic, but decisions and actions driven primarily by a discourse of fear are scary indeed.
The views expressed on The Moral Is are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Valley Public Radio.
