Fear Arousing

Characteristics of Fear Arousing

To help you identify fear arousing in media, you should attempt to identify these characteristics.

Emphasis on Immediate Danger

Fear arousing highlights an immediate risk to your safety or well-being, even if the threat is not every day. For example, home invasions with an armed burglar are rare. However, commercials portray this type of crime by reenacting a scene of an armed burglar breaking into a family's home. These images show the immediate danger you could face in that situation.

Danger Rooted in a Common Fear

People tend to share fears, such as death or harm to personal safety. Individuals using fear appeals often link the immediate danger to one of these fears. The example commercial about a home security system plays on the common fear of having one's home invaded and having one's life threatened.

Stopping Danger by Taking Action

There is a stated or implied way to stop the immediate threat. Usually, the risk ends with individuals taking the advice given by a speaker or found in an advertisement or commercial. For example, commercials advertising home security systems will show a happy family safe in their home at the end after purchasing one. These images signal to the viewer that the immediate danger will end when they follow the given advice.

Fig. 1. Home security system companies emphasize immediate danger to convince people to buy their product.

Examples of Fear Arousing in Communication

Companies, public health campaigns, and politicians often use an appeal to fear in their communications. The examples below detail how they incorporate fear arousing and their use of the characteristics of appealing to fear.

Commercials

Commercials arouse fear in the audience to persuade them to buy their product. As seen in the introduction, a typical example is a company attempting to sell security software. They instill fear in the audience that someone may break into their house.

Another prominent example is selling emergency necklaces or bracelets for the elderly to notify emergency services in case of severe injury or illness. The commercials arouse fear by showing images of elderly adults lying on the ground in their homes, unable to get help. The immediate risk is the elderly's inability to get help, which plays into the common concerns of risks to personal safety and potential death.

The commercial recommends buying the product to eliminate this threat.

Health Campaigns

Public health campaigns are another example of how companies arouse fear in their audience. These campaigns attempt to deter dangerous behavior. For instance, smoking campaigns portray the devastating effects of smoking. Commercials will contain the impact of smoking tobacco, such as a blackened lung, side effects from surgery for cancer, and damaging throats or voice boxes.

These commercials and advertisements use people's fear of becoming seriously ill from smoking to convince them not to smoke. The immediate risk portrayed in these campaigns is the severe effects of smoking, and the fear evoked is the serious bodily harm potentially caused by smoking. The recommended action to prevent this harm is not smoking.

Fig. 2. Images like this one are common in anti-smoking campaigns to make individuals fear smoking's effects.

Political Advertising

Political advertising also uses fear to persuade audiences to vote for a candidate or support a particular proposal. For example, a frequent attack politicians make against their opponents is that the other does not pursue strict punishment for criminals, also known as being "soft on crime."

TV commercials use imagery to support this argument. They show images or video clips of gangs and riots while the narrator highlights how this politician has not voted for a particular bill, increasing crime.

These advertisements use arousing fear by showing violent images to motivate their audience to vote for someone who does not support crime and lawlessness. The immediate danger shown in these advertisements is violent crime, which plays into the fear of one's personal security being at risk. The commercial suggests that the way to stop this threat is by voting for the correct politician.

Connection Between Fear and Arousal

There is a reason why companies and politicians use arousing fear to persuade an audience. As mentioned, arousing fear is a type of emotional appeal. People react to their emotions, especially powerful ones like fear. It is an emotion that people experience when they perceive there is a threat to their safety. The perception of this threat causes individuals to act to preserve their safety.

Companies and politicians hope to persuade individuals to act in a way beneficial to them based on this response. Brain activity is the basis for this response. When an individual experiences fear and potential threats, the brain prompts them to act to preserve their safety.

This response is why this appeal is called "arousing fear." People have the instinct to act to prevent potential danger. If a company or politician can instill dread in their audience, they can persuade them to follow their recommended action to lessen the danger they are experiencing.

Effects of Arousing Fear

Researchers have debated the effects of using arousing fear in persuasion. While arousing fear may be helpful in specific situations, arousing fear can be a type of rhetorical fallacy—and unethical.

Arousing Fear as a Rhetorical Fallacy

Rhetorical fallacies are deceptive arguments that have faulty reasoning at their foundation. There is usually an unclear or bad connection between the evidence and the claim. For example, the following statement is an example of a rhetorical fallacy.

Arousing fear can be an example of a rhetorical fallacy based on emotion. This type of fallacy is called scare tactics.

However, there is often no logical reason for this fear.

When using scare tactics, the writer or speaker evokes fear in the audience by highlighting the most extreme situations that are unlikely to happen. Politicians often use scare tactics in their advertising to arouse fear. Political advertising will show extreme conditions unlikely to occur, such as violent crime overtaking an entire city. By instilling fear in the audience by showing these unlikely situations, politicians hope to persuade people to vote for them.

The effect of arousing fear based on scare tactics can have negative consequences. After the Japanese government bombed Pearl Harbor in World War II, journalists and politicians promoted the idea that the United States needed to surveil Japanese-Americans in case they were loyal to the Japanese government. This advocacy led to the internment of Japanese-Americans in camps in the United States.

This history demonstrates the harmful effects of scare tactics. There was no proof that Japanese-Americans had widespread support for the Japanese government and its actions. However, by using scare tactics and the imagined threat that these citizens would endanger the United States, individuals came to support the internment of their fellow citizens. Scare tactics turn individuals into scapegoats, negatively impacting their livelihoods.

Fig. 3. Politicians often use these images as scare tactics to convince voters to support them.

Analyzing Scare Tactics

When analyzing a persuasive text in fiction or nonfiction, you can analyze a text to determine if a character employs scare tactics. If someone appeals to fear, you will want to discover whether the fear is based on reality or fiction. If the appeal is not based on reality, along with supporting the character's agenda, they are using scare tactics.

For example, you can analyze how various characters appeal to fear in Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1953). In the play, set during the Salem witch trials, paranoia has taken over Salem as individuals suspect each other of becoming a witch in support of the Devil. Abigail Williams, caught by other villagers dancing naked in the forest with several other young women, falsely accuses others of witchcraft to not receive punishment and to seek revenge against her illicit lover and his wife, John and Elizabeth Proctor.

Abigail's arguments use an appeal to fear to convince villagers to suspect their peers of witchcraft. For example, in a trial against John and Elizabeth, Judge Danforth suggests Abigail may not be truthful in her accusations. She attempts to convince the court she is correct by stating the Devil is influencing Salem.

She then pretends that she is afraid when she sees an invisible bird, a sign of demonic influence, flying through the courtroom. Her act causes others in the courtroom to panic.

Abigail's speech and actions are an example of scare tactics. She influences the audience to support her and punish John and Elizabeth. She appeals to the villagers' fear that the Devil will possess and corrupt them. The villagers believe they can get rid of the threat by punishing Proctor and supporting her.

This fear is not based on reality. Abigail lies about who is a witch to gain status and for revenge. While not directly appealing to the play's audience, The Crucible shows how authors dramatize a character's use of scare tactics to influence and persuade other characters.