Sunday reflection from David G. Myers in John Brockman’s volume “Know This”:
“News-feed images can make us excessively fearful of infinitesimal risks. And so we spend an estimated $500 million on anti-terrorism security per U.S. terrorist death but only $10,000 on cancer research per cancer death. As one risk expert explained, ‘If it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of news is ‘something that hardly ever happens’….
“Media researcher George Gerbner’s cautionary words to a 1981 congressional subcommittee ring true today: ‘Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipuated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures.’
“Ergo, we too often fear the wrong things. And it matters.”
No comments:
Post a Comment