scaremonger (n.) A person who invents threats to themselves and others
everywhere. A form of critic looking for a lucky break to be proven
right. Typically praises other scaremongers, 1984, hates the
government, organised religion and trading systems while freely using
the produce of any. Quite narrow minded and insecure, but will attract
a lot of sheep.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scaremonger

Fear mongering (or scaremongering) is the use of fear to leverage the
opinions and actions of others towards some end. The object of fear is
exaggerated; those the fear is directed toward are kept aware of it on
a constant basis.

Fear mongering is often used in a time of war as a political tactic to
frighten citizens and influence their political views. Fear mongering
in the United States surfaced most prominently during the era of
McCarthyism, when the nation first faced the threat of nuclear
attack.

Since then politicians and pundits alike have
realized and utilized the powerful influential
impact that fear can have on
American voters.

Fear of terrorism born from the September 11th attacks has been
arguably exploited by incumbent politicians to maintain their control
of the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, and Executive branch of
the government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_mongering

Culture of fear is a term that refers to a perceived prevalence of
fear and anxiety in public discourse and relationships, and how this
may affect the way people interact with one another as individuals and
as democratic agents.

The motives offered for such a deliberate programme of scaremongering
vary, but hinge on the potential for increased social control that a
mistrustful and mutually fearing population might offer to those in
power. In these accounts, fears are carefully and repeatedly created
and fed by anyone who wishes to create fear, often through the
manipulation of words, facts, news, sources or data, in order to
induce certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or
policies (at home or abroad), keep people consuming, elect demagogic
politicians, or distract the public's attention from allegedly more
urgent social issues like poverty, social security, unemployment,
crime or pollution.

Deliberate techniques for scaremongering: Careful selection and
omission of news (some relevant facts are shown and some are not);
Distortion of statistics or numbers; Transformation of single events
into social epidemics (Salem witch trials); Corruption and distortion
of words or terminology according to specific goals; Stigmatization of
minorities, especially when associated with criminal acts, degrading
behaviour or immigration policies (Yellow Peril); Oversimplification
of complex and multifaceted situations; Causal inversion (turning a
cause into an effect or vice-versa); Outright fabrication of events or
claims.

Individuals with the position and power to persuade "generate" a
culture of fear which obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes
it easier for demagogic politicians and news media to mobilize the
public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue and generate ad
revenues. In a broader domestic political context, many believe that
conservative politicians and moral leaders make people afraid about
things such as terrorism, crime or illegal drugs both to influence
public opinion and personal behavior.

Language is a powerful and often subliminal tool in the development of
fears. For example that which is simply known as "public health care"
in most countries is often labelled as socialized medicine in the US
to give the concept a whiff of socialism. Similarly, the adjective
liberal, which was a word with positive associations to the political
philosophy of maintaining freedoms and liberties has, in recent years,
been turned into a word of abuse in the US, especially by the
conservative media. The association or words and ideas with negative
sentiments is an effective means of promoting a culture of fear. It
echoes the Nazi use of language to infiltrate the minds of a
population, which the writer Victor Klemperer described in his 1947
book LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: The language of the Third Reich: A
Philologist's notebook.. This upturning of language as a means of mind
control seeped further into public consciousness when George Orwell's
novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published, with its version known as
Newspeak. - -

- Politicians and orators speak to create an environment more amicable
to their intended policies and philosophy.

- Promoters of a particular cause may want many people to join them in
the cause. However, because people generally don't become emotional
about something complex and hard to understand, promoters may tend to
oversimplify matters to emphasize their main points and deemphasize
points of contention.

- Commercial media outlets are simply maximizing their audience, and
scary information happens to be one thing that grabs people's
attention. (It is sometimes argued that this serves the public
interest, though more often that it distorts public understanding of
issues.)

An explosion of overblown fears in the public discourse might be
labeled by other commentators as "scares" or moral panic. Typical
symptoms of a scare include a lack of scientific or general education
among the public, intrinsic human biases in the assessment of risk, a
lack of rational thinking, misinformation, and giving too much weight
to rumor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_fear

Moral panic is a sociological term, coined by Stanley Cohen, meaning a
reaction by a group of people based on the false or exaggerated
perception that some cultural behavior or group, frequently a minority
group or a subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses a menace to
society. It has also been more broadly defined as an "episode,
condition, person or group of persons" that has in recent times been
"defined as a threat to societal values and interests." They are
byproducts of controversies that produce arguments and social tension,
or aren't easily discussed as some of these moral panics are taboo to
many people. Characterization of the group reaction as a moral panic
requires a presumption that the group's perceptions are unfounded or
exaggerated.

These reactions are often fueled by media coverage or propaganda
around a social issue, although semi-spontaneous moral panics do
occur. Mass hysteria can be an element in these movements, but moral
panic is different from mass hysteria in that a moral panic is
specifically framed in terms of morality and is usually expressed as
outrage rather than fear. Moral panics (as defined by Cohen) revolve
around a perceived threat to a value or norm held by a society
normally stimulated by glorification within the mass media or 'folk
legend' within societies. Panics have a number of outcomes, with one
being the certification to the players within the panic that what they
are doing appears to warrant observation by mass media and therefore
may push them further into the activities that led to the original
feeling of moral panic.

The influences and behaviors of young people are common themes in many
moral panics.

Moral Panics have several distinct features:

1, Panic/anxiety: This is often very intense and there seems to be no
problem greater than the subject of the panic.

2. Short lived: The Panic lasts for only a few months at the most and
can recur.
Emotive language and images: Such as monsters, decay and crisis to
emphasize the acuteness of the problem. Medical language can also be
used out of context such as the word "epidemic".

3. Case Studies: These are often dramatic and unrepresentative.
Statistics: Often misused or written in such a way that makes the
reader think the problem is worse than it is; for example, "400%%
greater" will make most think that something is 400 times higher
rather than 4 times.

4. Demonization of a group: Sometimes the chosen group does not even
exist and those that do are mostly socially or economically marginal.
Often the media can portray a group in a way that they don't really
exist and the group will eventually live up to the stereotype created
for them.

5. A Media led or generation phenomenon: Printed to start with and
then TV and radio follow amplifying the panic which is then reflected
elsewhere such as politics. Even in Victorian society moral panics
were seen to be adopted by the media in the form of pamphlets,
handbills and newspapers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

Sensationalism is a manner of being extremely controversial, loud, or
attention-grabbing. It is especially applied to the emphasis of the
unusual or atypical. It is also a form of theatre.

The term is commonly used in reference to the media. Critics of media
bias of all political stripes often charge the media with engaging in
sensationalism in their reporting and conduct. That is, the notion
that media outlets often choose to report heavily on stories with
shock value or attention-grabbing names or events, rather than
reporting on more pressing issues to the general public.

In the extreme case, the media would report the news if it makes a
good story, without much regard for the factual accuracy. Thus, a
press release including ridiculous and false pseudoscientific claims
issued by a controversial group is guaranteed a lot of media coverage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensationalism

An emergency is a situation which poses an immediate risk to health,
life, property or environment. Most emergencies require urgent
intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation, although in some
situations, mitigation may not be possible and agencies may only be
able to offer palliative care for the aftermath.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency

Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the
opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Instead of
impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense
presents information in order to influence its audience. The most
effective propaganda is often completely truthful, but some propaganda
presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a
particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an
emotional rather than rational response to the information presented.
The desired result is a change of the cognitive narrative of the
subject in the target audience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda