How the Media Influences Our Fear of Terrorism
Full article182 words · extracted from schneier.com · click to collapse
Good article that crunches the data and shows that the press’s coverage of terrorism is disproportional to its comparative risk.
Our brains aren’t very good at probability and risk analysis. We tend to exaggerate spectacular, strange and rare events, and downplay ordinary, familiar and common ones. We think rare risks are more common than they are. We fear them more than probability indicates we should.
There is a lot of psychological research that tries to explain this, but one of the key findings is this: People tend to base risk analysis more on stories than on data. Stories engage us at a much more visceral level, especially stories that are vivid, exciting or personally involving.
If a friend tells you about getting mugged in a foreign country, that story is more likely to affect how safe you feel traveling to that country than reading a page of abstract crime statistics will.
Novelty plus dread plus a good story equals overreaction.
It’s not just murders. It’s flying vs. driving: the former is much safer, but accidents are so more spectacular when they occur.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/01/how_the_media_i.html