Help Nunu with Homework

[Nunu]

Okay so the deal is I've got some uni hoework to do and y'all can help me out, its not hard stuff but it helps to have many minds chip in.

What I'm after are instances of media panic that aren't true.

Several examples of this:

The release of grand theft auto games tend to be met with much ire from the media about teaching our children to be violent little criminals. The statistics however indicate a dramatic(ish) decrease in youth crime because all the misbegotten youthes are at home playing games instead of on the streets.

Geneticaly engineered food gets press from people who think it will make you mutate if you eat it. where as in reality its probably better for you than normal food as the engineering has little more effect than selective breeding of crops anyway and they require less pesticides.

 

[maikochan]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

First thing that comes to mind for me is the loud cries against the Large Hadron Collider and the fears that it will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth. Clearly, that hasn't come to pass.

Y2K is another one, and, though it remains to be seen, the 2012 doomsday stuff is highly likely to not happen.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

oh i like this 2012 doomsday stuff, current is good. Thank you maiko. Everyone else, the more the better.

 

[Host]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Just look up Today Tonight's website Nunu, it's about one in every three. Given my spectacularly shitty memory, the only moral panic that comes to mind is that of women getting drunk and fighting to much greater extents than normal. Statistically true, sure, but if you look at the ratio of women to men, even an increase of 50% as the news states only puts women still committing around half as many offences as men.

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...Oh, and

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, when essentially only one noted instance of such thing had ever occurred. Or the article all over the news of

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that was actually someone playing around with a video-camera (dunno just how bad the hoon problem was at the time, but the actual story itself is reportedly false).

(Additionally, the Wikipedia article or, even better,

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on the phenomenon should have more information than you'll ever need.)

EDIT: Also slipped my mind, that old 'Mass Effect 1 sex-scene' news article - the current standard for "Horribly Misinformed".

...Possibly also swine flu, though I believe at the time everyone was panicking about it, nobody knew exactly how deadly it was(n't).

EDITEDIT: ...Come to think of it, this would be a more accurate trope:

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[Nunu]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Good work host.

 

[lurker]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Ironicly enough I just read an article on Cracked yesterday about stupid panics the media ate up and turned into actual moral dilemmas, and gives examples of the moral outcrys over comics, D&D, 'records backwards equals subliminal messages', Rainbow Parties, jenkam (aka 'poo drug'), and a sudden rush of fear of the Church of Satan around the 1980s due to the release of a book called 'Michelle Remembers'. Though they didn't include sourcelinks for further reading off this article, it's a stepping stone if you want to look up any further ideas.

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[White Oak]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Continuing with the doomsday cultists of 2012, what about the Heaven's Gate folk during the Hale-Bopp Comet in '97? Wasn't so much a media frenzy, but it could be used to contrast the widespread 2012 conspiracy.

Another more recent one, if you want to go political, are the supposed "death squads" of Obama's Healthcare reform that would come for granny if she got a cough.

 

[Kusanagi]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Can't think of anything off-hand, but if you want media blowing shit out of proportion, just look to any major, wide-spread American news station. FOX and MSNBC are probably the easiest.

Only news source I trust is the BBC.

 

[Copper]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

It's not exactly media, but waaaaay back in the day, there was that whole "War of the Worlds" thing that people thought was an actual radio broadcast about Martians invading the Earth.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Iroicaly i hear that most of the panic about that was actualy media panic.

 

[Copper]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Well, if it helps or ties in to what you're working on, I say make use of it. I guess there were a lot of stories about what happened afterward, including, I believe, people that sued H.G. Wells for damages and the like.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

I do know the War of the Worlds thing happened in a few countries. So back then when not everything was able to be transmitted across the globe in seconds, a few different stations tried the same thing... except they sometimes changed the names of locations.

There was one done out of Toronto at the time that was using the names of towns and such close by, but not so close that most people would be able to trek out there right away to check things out. I was actually listening to one of those Canadian War of the Worlds broadcasts in class as an example of media power.

 

[aika]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

The entire of the Daily Mail, every day.

 

[SirOni]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

The entire of the Daily Mail, every day.

Don't forget to include The Sun as well.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Help Nunu with Homework

Specific stories are really a lot more helpfull but if i get a chance i'll ceck them out