How could a very specific and unlikely killer virus like the swine flu – believed to have afflicted almost 13,000 people worldwide within two months compared to more than 15 million deaths every year from all infectious diseases – have sparked a global panic? Two arguments are brought to light, namely the so called fear factor and the news factor. Contrary to the SARS epidemic in China, the Mexican government didn’t try to withhold information from the world public and instead acted according to the principle of risk aversion: Without knowing the effects of the measures taken to prevent transmissions, the Mexican health management allowed the WHO and national governments to consider further steps – entailing panic pyramid (over-)reactions.
In order to justify radical political decisions, the fear factor needs a sparking medium, a system which creates a secondary reality: the mass media. According to the theory of news values, events are more likely to be reported and absorbed by the audience if they fulfil certain criteria of newsworthiness, such as frequency, reference to elite nations, personalisation or unexpectedness. As it is often said in media, only bad news is good news.
However, due to functional differentiation and the fact of an uncertain future, there is no absolute security or knowledge – not even in the health care system. Nevertheless, since every modern subsystem tries to expand its specific rationality, medical professionals are likely to focus on prevention – though in the mean time neglecting the risks of taking medication and their side-effects or the costs of economic disruption like the closing of airports, restaurants and schools. Thus, although the virus does not turn out to be as vicious as expected, both factors demonstrate how easily the modern world can be seduced into applying backward security perspectives rather than taking the risks of their own decisions into account – finally revealing the vulnerability of scientific- and technology-orientated societies.
References
Galtung, Johann & Ruge, Mari Holmboe 1965: The Structure of Foreign News: The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers. Journal of Peace Research 2, pp. 64-90.
Luhmann, Niklas 2004: Die Realität der Massenmedien. 3. edition. Wiesbaden: VS.
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