> 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