The Only Thing to Fear is Fear

One of the most difficult aspects of the persuasion process is capturing an individual’s attention. Many individuals are resistant to persuasion when they recognize it, and as has been discussed already, it can be difficult for individuals to overcome their own heuristics in order to process a message carefully (of course, not all persuasion requires careful processing).

To combat this and attract attention, many advertisers and campaign managers have turned to using fear appeals to grab individuals’ attention. The logic behind fear appeals suggests that frightening people should get them to play attention to a message so that they can better protect themselves, as fear is a particularly strong motivator for human response.

But is fear enough? Communication and persuasion scholar Kim Witte developed the Extended Parallel Processing Model to suggest that merely scaring audiences is not in itself enough to suggest behavioral change. After all, fear might get us to pay attention to a message, but if a message scares us too much, we are just as likely to go into a state of fear control where we work to manage our emotions, for example, by discrediting the message or being repulsed by and then ignoring it. Such a campaign might be a memorable one, but likely does little to persuade us toward any sort of action.

How can we use fear effectively? Considering the discussion of fear in Ch. 11 of the textbook, what are your thoughts about using fear to raise issues with audiences? Based on the book, does it seem like fear can be used in a positive way? Do you agree?

As discussed in the textbook, fear is often used in campaigning and advertising messages. Fear is often used in order to grab the individuals attention and hopefully to evoke enough fear to cause an internal desire to change behavior. For example, a company would hope that a scary ad about the dangers of smoking would cause a smoker to be scared into quitting smoking. This method can be effective to some, but it is certainly not always reliable. I remember watching a very frightening ad about the dangers of smoking when I was a child. After watching this ad, I promised that I would never become a smoker and while that has held true I am not sure that it is due to the ad. I have also been around a family member when they have watched that same ad, this family member is an active smoker. While the ad scared me very much, my family member did not seem bothered by the ad at all or inclined to stop smoking due to this ad. This does not mean that fear cannot be beneficial, but I believe that no matter how scary something may be if an individual does not any desire to make a behavioral change an ad or campaign will not help them. Fear can definitely be beneficial as an educator and warning for what can happen with dangerous behavior. It should be used in that way to help prevent unsafe behaviors or stop someone from furthering to act on their behaviors. But I do not believe that ads or campaigns of any kind have the ability to change someones behaviors if they do not have some internal motivation themselves.

I think that sometimes, in order to get an important message or lesson across to people, they have to become a little bit afraid or concerned about the consequences of that issue. For example, like I mentioned in my Voicethread discussion, I remember when I was younger, I saw the commercial about a woman who had a hole in her throat because she had cancer from smoking so often and her voice sounded very different than what I’m sure her normal voice used to sound like. This was very startling to me and it made me realize the dangers of smoking cigarettes at a young age which made me not want to even try it. I think that with a case like this, it is necessary to show people the real truth and dangers of it even if it makes them a little bit scared. However, I don’t think we should always purposely use fear to get a message across to people because it is a better method to communicate and explain to them why they shouldn’t do something instead of making them afraid of everything. The book says that being afraid of something might make people pay attention more to that particular issue, but if it’s scares them too much, they may end up ignoring the message and just try to cope with what they are feeling instead of changing their actions. I partially agree with this because I think it depends on the situation. In my example of the anti-smoking commercial, fear worked for me because I was young and I hadn’t tried smoking before seeing that commercial. Watching what could happen if I did smoke made me not want to try it. But, if someone has already been smoking for years, they may be afraid of what could happen or even afraid of quitting because that is something that has been apart of their daily lives for a long time. They might think that it is too late to quit because they think the damage has already been done and won’t make much of a difference now so they just push away their fears and go back to what they have been doing. Overall, I do think that fear can be used in a positive way in certain situations and that it also depends on the person.

People are often using fear to their advantages. Through media people can take advantage of fears that others may have to use to their own advantage whether it is for health warnings or related type of marketing.In order to use fear effectively , find ways to calm someone with a solution to their fear, also when having ones attention try to not deter them with their own fears.Personally we don't control who fears what so I don't see it being an issue to use fear to connect to audiences and get attention.

Like the textbook states, fear is a tactic used in campaigns and advertising. A company doing an anti-smoking campaign can emote fear in their advertising showing the dangers of smoking. I once saw an anti-smoking ad showing a cigarette box turn into a spider-like alien monster that growled and crawled into a corner. It was a metaphor for the ravenous and disgusting chemicals and substances in cigarettes. The purpose is to scare people into not smoking because they'd be afraid of putting those chemicals into their body. A political campaign uses fear to keep people from voting from a particular candidate because according to them, if they get into office, it'll be bad for everyone. But, while fear can be a strong motivator and keep people from doing certain things, fear can only do so much. When people are inundated with so much fear, it tends to turn them off to the point they just turn away from the message or become desensitized to it. There's also the fact that if people don't really want to change themselves or if policies don't change, then nothing happens. If a smoker sees an anti-smoking campaign and sees the dangers of smoking, but is so addicted and/or too far gone, then they probably won't stop. Something scary that's repeatedly been happening in the U.S. is mass-shootings. They happen, lives are destroyed, people are sad, fearful, and 2 weeks later everything goes back to normal and people forget. We know that there are ways to reduce gun violence, such as universal background checks. But, there are a select few who make millions of guns each year,  and will do everything they can to prevent common-sense gun legislation because they won't make as much money. We've essentially become desensitized to something that should be fearful because we've seen it so much and nothing gets done about it and people just stop caring.

Campaigns and advertisers can use the fear tactics, as described in the book, to send a message and try to influence a target audience's behavior. But I think there is a limit between too much and too little. My most memorable example that I have seen for the United States are the antismoking ads from Truth. However, when I am actually watching cable TV (which is almost never for this reason), I see the same ads over and over and over and I start to tune it out. That isn't to say that I don't feel bad for the woman on TV that had a tracheostomy and developed cancer but there is only so much of it I can see before it's a pest more than anything.

If I had the opportunity to alter the way advertisers campaign, I would go with the way New Zealand runs things. Their commercials are dark and damn terrifying but they get your attention like this one. In this video, two young men are driving while intoxicated and crash. One is killed and the other is trapped inside the truck with his friend's body. Or sometimes they can be funny and get the same message across. They also relate to the targeted audience, younger college age adults, and do it in a way that isn't lecturing. My particular favorite is the Ghost Chips. This commercial shows a really drunk party host thinking over if he should stop his friend from leaving his house and driving drunk. He mulls it over in his head and imagines his friend's ghost haunting him and trying to steal his snacks and this makes him ask his friend to stay. His friend agrees and now he won't have to give up his chips to his friend's ghost!

With all these things in mind, I think the book is correct in saying fear can have it's intended impact but the delivery has to be right for it to be effective.

If reality has taught us anything, It is that fear does not work as effective method. Smoking commercials for the past 20 years have tried to use fear tactics to stop individuals from smoking. While smoking may not be acceptable, it is still widely done. While in the USA, many areas are deemed nonsmoking, yet in other countries, smoking is still not only accepted, but highly condoned and normal. A fear tactic may grab the initial attention, however I find that rarely does the intent of the message actually stick. Individuals who want to stop smoking will attempt to stop smoking. However, many individuals will not be persuaded. They will reason that they conduct the rest of their lives in a healthy lifestyle, or that they are already too sick to stop. Fear can also simply be a seen as deceptive. Simply giving individual’s information may be the best method of convincing individuals. By giving everyone ethical information, and allowing them to view all of the facts, individuals are given the freedom to make their choices as they see fit.