Altheide & Michalowski (1999). Fear in the News

[Linnea Micciulla]

Hi everyone,

I don't know if anyone else has had a chance to read this month's (or, 
more accurately, this summer's) reading, but I have finally gotten 
around to it, so I thought I would share my thoughts.

In general, I thought it was quite an interesting study, although I 
found parts of it disjointed.  The authors seek to explore how "fear" is 
used in the news, focusing primarily on a local Arizona newspaper.  The 
rationale for exploring this topic in particular is the authors' belief 
(which I share) that fear is used to enable "reactive social policies 
that promote state control and surveillance." (p. 476).  They refer to 
their approach as "mapping" and "tracking" the use of fear in the news 
over a 10 year period. 

Major findings include:
twice as frequent use of the word "fear" in headlines and text over a 
7-10 year period in several major and local U.S. newspapers
fear is distributed over many sections, especially front page, sports, 
business and editorials
over time fear has "traveled" through many topics, but is consistently 
associated with children, community, schools and police
the perception of fear has increased, as part of a "discourse of fear," 
according to various polls
although people are more fearful, the crime rate has actually decreased, 
and the level of fear is an anomaly in a population that is 
exceptionally safe and healthy

They discuss at length the creation of a "problem frame" as "a secular 
alternative to a morality play".  (p. 479).  "The focus is on individual 
misfortune perpetrated by an evil agent... pursued by an agent of 
righteousness..." (p. 495).  Examples illustrate how problems of 
increased crime are framed within a debate about whether police need 
more resources, rather than employing a frame which examines the root 
causes of crime. 

One thing I found interesting was the authors' explanation for why the 
association of fear with violence, drugs and gangs was surpassed by an 
association of fear with children and schools in 1995.  They suggest 
that the association of fear with violence, drugs and gangs had become 
automatic by that time, so that fear was evoked as part of their 
connotation, and no longer needed to be mentioned explicitly.  Although 
that's an interesting hypothesis and may well be true, there doesn't 
seem to be an easy way to substantiate it, and it seems strange to me 
that fear wouldn't be equally associated with violence prior to 1995.  I 
suspect that the shift to children and school is partly due to an 
increase of school violence (or, at least, the reporting of it) and 
partly a tactic to draw on the readers' emotions by mentioning children 
and fear.

I think this kind of study, which shows a contrast between public 
perception (as fed by the media) and real-world events, can be quite 
illuminating.  In this case, where the discrepancy between fear and 
actual danger is so great, it's hard to dispute the findings.  Since the 
news is so entertainment-driven and emotion-laden these days, critical 
analysis that shows such clear and purposeful distortion of reality is 
much needed. 

I'd be interested to hear what others thought of the article, or about 
the potential of this kind of study for CDA.

Linnea