'The Cracked Podcast': A Genealogy Of Modern Fear

Fear is a human instinct that helps people to recognize and respond to dangerous situations and threats. Often, it causes people to react in a way that ensure their personal safety. In most situations, protecting oneself means going against someone else and thereby, creating conflict. In Walk On, Ferrin threatens personal safety of Vince and Jimmy, causing them to react with physical blows, creating a situation that involves conflict. An example of conflict caused by fear in the modern world is when George Bush and the Americans felt threatened, and therefore afraid, of Saddam Hussein. This fear for personal safety caused the Americans to react in a violent and aggressive way that ultimately lead to his death. This caused a huge media coverage, and words and phrases used in newspapers such as ‘cruel even for Iraq’ and ‘even by the stupefying standards of Iraq’s violence…’ The Media is often a huge assistant in shaping perceptions of events, people, and popular culture, and one of the main factors that are manipulated to form these perceptions is fear.

According to forward progressives, Fox news only reports 18% of the truth. That is a staggering 15 out of 83 times. Other new sites such as MSNBC are only honest 41% of the time. This can show you the obvious media bias promoting a specific agenda. If, their agenda turned to condemning Muslims what would stop them? Nothing, the Constitution’s first amendment protects the freedom of the press. If a terrorist attack would happen on U.S soil they could blame the Muslims and condemn all Muslims. This fear could lead to another “Red Scare” if the media were to partake in this agenda. Many could argue this has already taken place today with the already ignorant fear of Muslims. The media could push that same fear upon the masses instilling a fear that is already prevalent today even further. Although, there are many independent news sources that tell the truth that people trust but ultimately these sources are very hard to find. Many turn to convenience over truth which is why this scare could ultimately happen again. Many could say that many people don’t believe what the news tells them but, if that were true then why do people still watch

Fear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat(Websters Dictionary).Fear is something that our lives have adapted to rarely use as our ancient predecessors have.In our day and age the concept of fear comes through the stress of work. We humans no longer fear a cold nor do we fear storms as our houses protect us and on average our life spans are longer as old in the Paleolithic was 33 while currently it is 71.5(Wikipedia Life Expectancy). Why then is our fear so extensive that it can make us freeze up? “The answer is our legacy of ancient fears, the result of having spent millions of years running from predators. Our fear response is more influenced by the ancient species we struggled to escape than any modern challenges.”(The evolutionary legacy of having been prey.By Rob Dunn) This is one of the statements about human life. If this is so how do we develop from terror to finding fear fun?

Fear is often characterized as an irrational sense of negativity toward the unknown or the unlikeable. In the eyes of many Americans, the majority of whom proclaim their Christian beliefs, this sensation is considered unavoidable. Marilynne Robinson argues in her article “Fear”, published by The New York Review of Books in 2015, that “...first, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind” (Robinson 1). In other words, it is ‘unchristian’ to fear. In both the beginning and conclusion, she clearly expresses credibility through her extensive credentials and strong emotional arguments; however, this is overshadowed by the wordiness, sarcasm, and lack of

The American-Soviet relation marked a great degree of cooperation and symbolizes the defeat of Nazi Germany. However communism, McCarthyism, and the clashes between the countries perished the alliance between America and the Soviet Union. Therefore, despite the two countries trying to work together: their agreements would fail.

Fear is something that will always keep people up at night, whatever we do fear will always be there we can’t do anything about it, but we can choose what we want to fear. The article “Culture of Fear” by Barry Glassner focuses on the idea of fear, and it’s toll on society and culture of it’s inhabitants. Barry talks about the idea of how one event no matter how small can make us fearful inside. For example if one lives in New York and one see’s police brutality, he/she will always have a fear of cops. Barry also goes on to talk about stereotypes and how when something like an explosion or disaster happens we automatically think of Arabs. Another main

Fear in the news is constant although the stories vary with time therefore entertainment commands fear. With support from these examples, I would like to argue that the politics of fear is very popular in our culture. Fear has been always connected to topics like gangs and even crimes as large as transnational terrorism that overtime, the fear is no longer specified but merely understood. With reporters broadcasting these fear-filled events, a collective approval of expanding control and surveillance is effortless. Messages are constantly repeated, follow stereotypical assumptions of outside threats and marginalize people as the evil other. This results in an uplift of moral panic that emphasizes action must be taken in a timely manner to both

Thompson, H. S. (2009). Fear & Loathing in America, page 2 columnist, ESPN Internet Ventures. Retrieved from

As a journalist, I have come to understand that the appeal of using fear in articles, to persuade the masses using it can completely change your audience's way of thinking just by making assumptions about the opposing point-of-view/person. The United States controversy of the political figure known as Trump was a drastic change to politics as we know it that could shape every nation and linger for decades. After this event as an Australian we’re consciously scared about what that means for our country with the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. With the split in the Liberal Party that has occurred recently however between Malcolm Turnbull and Cory Bernardi, it has come to my attention that using fear needs to stop and that journalists like myself have gone over

Rodrick thank you for your post. There are many media outlets which pray on the fears of the masses. One outlet which I shall not name, I believed to influence the civil rift which is going on today. According to Emanuelsson & Mele (2003), “several studies have discovered that the vast majority of the public depends on the media for information about crime, and that they form their opinion about crime according to what they see or read in the media” (Par4). I believe if the government forced this particular media outlet to give the facts instead of giving scare tactics, there would not be as much hate as it is now

Similarly, “Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things” further examines the effects of media framing, and the way in which it affects public perception. For instance, Glassner discusses the events of child killers by introducing a terrorist attack that occurred in Oklahoma City. Initially, the terrorist attacks were thought to be planned by Islamic radicals because of the events of 9/11. However, the

The article for the most part covered the idea that despite the number of bad things that could happen such as a terrorism attack for example, that people still worry the most about things that are unlikely to ever harm them. One specific example that the article gave was whether one should be more afraid of flying in an airplane or eating a cheeseburger. The article suggested that the cheeseburger was hands down the worst because that leads to obesity, which is something that plagues the United States. The whole article basically questions why people have phobias of things that most likely won’t hurt them when there are worse things happening in the world around them that they should be more scared

I first want to start off by saying thank you for giving this extra credit assignment, not only because it’s going to improve my grade but also because it helped me realize that there is a way that I can conquer my fears especially when it comes to talking to girl I don’t know that I like or think is cute. This podcast also talked about other fear like parents being afraid of leaving their kids by themselves and the great fear of snake that many people have. Fear is commonly know  an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. The main topic of the podcast had to be what would happen if we could make our fear disappear?

In Once Upon a Time, by Nadine Gordimer, the author tells a dark story in a fairy tale format. This piece reveals a very dark truth, revealed through the theme, which is being controlled by fear. It is eloquently portrayed through her simple, yet descriptive wording. Allowing irrational fear to take over one’s life leads to self-destruction, which is the dark truth Gordimer wants the reader to understand.

Throughout this course, we have learned a lot of different topics that will help us all grow as individuals and learn to be able to apply them to our everyday lives. For the knowledge section, we have learned many different topics such as elements of fiction, theories of fear, and conducting research elements of fiction. The two subjects that I gained the most experience from most from this section of content was the Theories of Fear and the Elements of Fiction. By completing the theories of the fear project it allowed me to have a better understanding of Sigmund Freud's theory of how horror creates strong emotions when you are drawn to something that fills you with fearful anticipation. According to Freud, we enjoy fear because