Fearmongering

Theory[edit]

According to evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary biology, humans have a strong impulse to pay attention to danger because awareness of dangers has been important for survival throughout their evolutionary history. The effect is amplified by cultural evolution when the news media cater to people's appetite for news about dangers.^[2]


The attention of citizens is a fiercely contested resource that news media, political campaigners, social reformers, advertisers, civil society organizations, missionaries, and cultural event makers compete over, according to attention economy.^[3]


Social agents of all kinds are often using fearmongering as a tactic in the competition for attention, as illustrated by the examples below.^[2][4]


Fearmongering can have strong psychological effects, which may be intended or unintended. One hypothesized effect is mean world syndrome in which people perceive the world as more dangerous than it really is.^[5][6] Fearmongering can make people fear the wrong things, and use too many resources to avoid rare and unlikely dangers while more probable dangers are ignored. For example, some parents have kept their children at home to prevent abduction while they paid less attention to more common dangers such as lifestyle diseases or traffic accidents.^[7] Fearmongering can produce a rally around the flag effect by increasing support for the incumbent political leaders. For example, official warnings about the risk of terrorist attacks have led to increased support for the proposed policies of US Presidents.^[8][9]


Collective fear is likely to produce an authoritarian mentality, desire for a strong leader, strict discipline, punitiveness, intolerance, xenophobia, and less democracy, according to regality theory. Historically, the effect has been exploited by political entrepreneurs in many countries for purposes such as increasing support for an authoritarian government, avoiding democratization, or preparing the population for war.^[10]