May 4, 2009
Media Sensationalism of viral pandemics
Sensationalism is essentially the use of exciting and shocking stories or language at the expense of journalistic integrity in order to promote public interest and excitement. This form of sensationalism is often found in today’s media and has long been skewing peoples perception of what is and is not news. Children are often raised to believe that the news is a balanced and accurate source of information, delivering unbiased views on topics that often directly affect us, when unfortunately this isn’t always the case. Throughout the twentieth century the media has been expanding with the development of new technologies. Today global broadcasting and the internet are able to give people up to the minute information, which is especially prevalent in countries like Australia, which at one point in time was segregated from the rest of the world, and relied on print media for international news. However, with the global reach of the internet, news is now delivered to the doors of Australians every second of every day, and this, in theory, should be a positive. However, this can and has been used to sensationalize viral pandemics, which is defined as when a disease is prevalent over an entire country or even the world. This scaremongering has perpetuated unnecessary fear, and subsequently this fear is often taken advantage of by unethical businesses seeking profit. Lack of knowledge about anything is often a likely cause for worry in people. It is very easy for the press to exacerbate the problem in order to create a good story. A combination of little actual fact and sensationalist story writing is a potent cocktail for creating fear. Similar to that of the widespread trepidation caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in early 2000, the H5N1 virus (avian influenza), and more recently the H1N1 virus (swine influenza) have sullied every form of media from print, to television, to the...