Fear Mongering

From civicintelligence
Nuclear proliferation is often used in fear mongering in politics

Description

The use of fear to influence people's opinions toward a specific end is the goal of this pattern.

How it Works

Fear is a very big motivator, perhaps one of the biggest motivators for human behavior. Since it is such an effective motivator for action and change it can be used to influence human behavior toward specific ends. Say you wanted to motivate a nation to go to war with another nation: you could motivate people toward this end by convincing people that the other country means harm against the citizens of your country, in this way people could be convinced that the best course is to preemptively attack in order to avoid being attacked themselves.

Evidence

Fear mongering is most often found in politics. One of the best known examples of fear mongering can be seen in this TV advertisement from Lyndon Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign.

Another area where fear is often used as a tactic is in advertising/marketing. (more to follow-work in progress)

"One and a half million (of the Muslims in the United States) are radicalized to the point that they'd want to kill you." — Fox News

Linked Patterns

Media Monopolies,Xenophobia

Rererences

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-fear-mongering.htm http://news.yahoo.com/fear-mongering-junk-science-nrdc-161816873.html