Media's power to create panic and neglect tragedy:

This past week, which was designated to our last four presentations, provided a number of excellent group topics that heated the room with discussion. The groups who focused on India and Microsoft, developed several key arguments and avenues of thought that definitely aided in my understanding of both topics. India, as a recently expanding nation, involved in the IT revolution, has undergone a substantial and significant transformation. I learned that India has entered into an era not only characterized by rapid economic and political growth, but also by social, cultural and structural change. As an imminent global leader, it is interesting to analyze India and predict how it will adapt to its new position. It seems that India will definitely experience some internal and external struggle as it’s cultural, social and religious beliefs adjust to the effects of globalization. With the invasion of Western capital, and help from world organizations like the IMF and World Bank, there will likely come inevitable change. India is undoubtedly a country, impacted greatly on an international level. In my opinion, it is the most appropriate country in our modern world to be used as a case study to understand and analyze the various networks and profound implications of globalization.
Besides the interest that I had with the India presentation, the topic that was most thought provoking was the presentation on SARS. As one of the four groups that presented this week, I thought that the major underlying themes of our Rwanda presentation were also predominant in the groups presentation on SARS. The power of the media, and the overall control that the media possesses to set the public agenda proved to be the major mutual theme. The Rwanda genocide was a horrific tragedy that occurred in large part because of the lack of accurate and substantial international media coverage. To put generally, media outlets constructed the events of Rwanda in a certain way, (i.e.- representing it as civil war rather than genocide) which lead the public and international community to perceive the events in a particular light. The media essentially, holding great power, set the international agenda in 1994 with ‘the genocide of Rwanda’ remaining absent. In this instance, the media framed and constructed what was important, what was crucial and what was of greatest interest to the international public.
The SARS presentation allows us to examine a similar theme, however from a somewhat different angle. This is most interesting because, unlike the Rwanda case, as communication students, the majority of our time is directed to discuss the overabundance and concentration of media coverage of some events over others. The SARS case illustrates the media’s tendency to over-accentuate and sensationalize a certain issue over others. The media thrives off of highlighting risk and further dramatizing stories to gain ratings and increase public interest. McCleans even stated in an article discussing SARS “conventional wisdom holds that if the media are given an inch, they'll take 1,000 miles, sensationalizing stories in a drive to attract audiences” (Durbin 2003).
In my opinion, SARS, as an issue characterized as a ‘dangerous international epidemic’ that dominated the medias agenda, is nothing more severe than such health scares as Mad Cow Disease, West Nile, Bird flu and even the Spinach scare. Each of these issues or events, took on a similar role within the media, as they were all depicted in an exaggerated light.
When Mad Cow disease was first mediated within the UK, it was immediately described as an extremely dangerous and pertinent issue; it was forecasted to become an incredibly harmful and devastating international epidemic. Consequently, with the first cases uncovered in Canada, the media exploded to announce public health safety warnings about all beef and beef products. After many extensive investigations initiated by the government to ensure our industry’s safety, several cows on a local farm out West were found infected. The probability that our beef market was completely contaminated due to the identification of only several sick cows in a local Western town was incredibly low, yet the media exploited the issue and represented the event as a nation wide health scare. Beef was represented by the media with fearful connotations, and as a result our market severely suffered.
The meanings that various media outlets perpetuate, are incredibly potent in the realities that they construct. The terminology alone, as emphasized by the SARS group, such as ‘it strikes’, ‘it stalks’ and ‘it kills’, played a central role is framing the severity of the SARS issue. Specifically the metaphors and descriptions of war, the visual images of countless Asian civilians with masks etc all accumulated to frame the issue for the public to fear. One headline in particular that I remember from the media specifically during the SARS epidemic was “the headline at the Drudge Report that drooled, 'SARS Bug Said Deadlier Than AIDS!'" (Durbin 2003). These types of powerful statements, used by the media to attract audiences and readers, essentially create an unnecessary public panic, while constructing issues like SARS and Mad Cow Disease to be larger than life.
The Bird Flu, West Nile and the Spinach scare, are all other examples where the media utilized their power to initiate an international health scare, and alter the public’s perceived concern. In particular, I remember a couple of years ago, when the West Nile Virus was the topic of media discussion and I was up North at my cottage in Muskoka. People were so concerned and paranoid about the mosquitoes that you would see residents and visitors wearing long sleeve shirts, long pants, hats with nets, and gloves out at night around the camp fire. Ironically enough, as you probably already know, at that time there was probably no more than 2 documented cases of West Nile in all of Canada that year. With that said, even until this summer, I still had friends that would not go outside at night without multiple layers of clothing on, for fear they would contract West Nile. This honestly amazes me, as there has never been a case of West Nile in Muskoka, and the chances of contracting the virus in general is virtually slim to none.
However, given the amount of designated coverage and the way the media constructs and frames these issues, i guess its not that hard to see how the public gets sucked into the mediated realities associated with these health ‘scares’.
Given this blog about the previous weeks presentations, I think the most important theme that I wanted to stress was essentially the media's power to set the agenda and to construct and represent certain chosen realities. What I think is most detrimental about the media's tendency to accentuate certain news stories, is not so much the fact that they embellish certain issues, rather that these embellishments take away from the media’s concern for other more important news events, such as the Rwanda genocide.
When the media was directed to extensively cover SARS, were there other more important issues that should have been acknowledged by the media? These are the types of questions that concerned me during this presentation.....as I had the Rwanda genocide and the media’s agenda on my mind...






Durbin, Jonathan. “Fear Factory: Have the media overblown Canada’s Health Scares?” Macleans.ca. June 2003. Rogers Publishing. 17 Mar. 2008 .