Numbers > Number 19
19

THE COMMUNICATION OF FEAR

Enero 2023
Introduction     Studies     Research     Reviews

Introduction

MUSICCO, Daniela

The communiction of fear: media, manipulation and use of fear

In order to mobilise millions of citizens around the world, governments and institutions have chosen to play the fear button.

Invasive daily information and death updates have been a constant dynamic in almost all media.

The widespread use of war terminology has further increased the unleashing of the human feeling of fear. Curiously, the image of death has not been personalized; the suffering has hardly been given a face. The images of the disinfectant spreaders showed unrecognisable human beings, without a face, under a diving mask, the anonymous coffins in the morgues, the nameless crosses in mass graves in the most deprived areas of the planet. Social alarm is created, a feeling of insecurity is produced, which is combined with fear and thus forces the communication of being and «being» of man, in the midst of an in-security (Rufino, 2017) that pushes the here and now, in the face of the hope of something that is threatened and in which one stops believing. The most globalised communication of this new century, of a human catastrophe, has been dehumanised. With the exception of some of the faces of the health workers showing their exhaustion and pleas for help, of some rare patient who had suffered, was suffering from the disease or was finally leaving the ICU with applause, the rest have been numbers: the terror of numbers. Fear has been instilled with a persuasive will through the number of deaths: in one year more than 2,600,000. It could not be otherwise: in the era of big data, of the quantitative, data is the best weapon for the communication of fear. Data that transfer aseptic numbers of victims of a common enemy, the Covid-19 virus, terribly terrifying, because nothing was known about it and it was out of control (Legrenzi, 2021). In the words of Callejo Gallego, citing a book by Calvo (2003), the society is a thriller starring public opinion; in a premonitory way, it reflects on a society adrift, pushed by one epidemic after another, submerged in the unapproachable globalisation, and the hyper-presence of the media with a climate of opinion that is frightened by uncertainty and that makes the message of fear its most effective propagandist. Callejo Gallego and Calvo sketch a political and social context in Spain in 2003 which, curiously, has been exacerbated in the media and in politics in 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic, in a supposedly very different social and political landscape.


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Studies

PACELLI, Donatella

The role of fear in collective phenomena. Fear of others and the need for society between politics and information

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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GARCÍA-ESCRIVÁ, Vicente

Nightmare and dream in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet: horror, parody and nostalgia for the marvellous in the epilogue of the filmic text

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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SONNENFELD, Alfred

The hidden message of fear. Effects on the imagination of the social environment and the media during the Covid-19 pandemic

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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FORLENZA, Daria

The social construction of fear and the media representation of migrants

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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PÉREZ, Gema and AMADO SUÁREZ, Adriana

Risk communication: Fear during the lockdown in Spain and Argentina. Analysis of the press conferences of the Presidents of the Government

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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DÍAZ RIVERA, Paola Eunice and GARCÍA BARRÓN, Luis Alberto

Discourse of fear: why emotion convinces us more than reason

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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REY LENNON, Federico

Credibility, fear, and communication

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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VELÁSQUEZ OSSA, César Mauricio

Fear as a media input: Journalism and quality communication during covid-19

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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FLORES, Silvana

Between grieving monsters and macabre scientists: Mexican horror films in the 50s and 60s

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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DEL RÍO SANZ, Emilio and SÉTULA, Rocío

Fear and its role in the social order

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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SERRATORE, Constanza

The fear of death. A policy that oscillates between community and immunity

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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MARTÍN, María

The common emotion of fear and its communication in psychology

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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Research

DÍAZ CUESTA, José; GÓMEZ LÓPEZ, Jacinto and QUIÑONES DE LA IGLESIA, Francisco Javier

Disinformation and hybrid warfare. Instrumentalization of informative narratives to understand the war of the 21st century

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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BURGOS, Enric

Towards another social conception of science? About the television coverage of the pandemic in Spain

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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LANGAN, Patrick

The integration of narrative thinking and detective logic in Chesterton’s Father Brown

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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SUAU GOMILA, Guillem and SÁNCHEZ-MEZA, Metzeri

Online Pandemic: Analysis of campaigns against gender-based violence and media coverage of machismo during the Covid-19 confinement on Facebook and Instagram

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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ARÉVALO, Rebeca and DEL PRADO FLORES, Rogelio

Hermeneutics of hate and crisis in digital communication around the figures of the Presidents of Mexico, Spain and the United States in the management of Covid-19

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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Reviews

SERRA, Juan Pablo

Who is fascist

Comunicación y Hombre. 2023, nº19

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