TV shows should stop feeding culture of fear

It seems that whenever I go to a Borders bookstore or just walk
around campus, I cannot help but overhear people talk about the
television show “24.” I watched a few episodes of the
show about two or three seasons ago, and I can understand why it is
so popular ““ the suspense keeps the viewer coming back for
more.

However, I cannot help but think that this minute-by-minute
thriller is not merely entertainment.

I asked an avid fan of the show, and he confirmed that every
season thus far has addressed terrorist plots.

While this relevant theme might explain part of the show’s
popularity, I suspect that it is perpetuating the “culture of
fear” that has cropped up in the United States in recent
years.

Four years ago all Americans, including myself, felt a new sense
of fear in the days and weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. What happened that day was truly horrific, and it affected
the American psyche.

However, in addition to the genuine and legitimate fear that we
experienced and still remember, I think that at some point this
fear took on a life of its own.

This culture of fear came into existence in the year or so after
the attacks and was the product of the sheer number of times the
memory of what had happened was evoked by the administration via
the mass media. It is arguable that by playing on our fears, this
administration shored up significant public support for the
invasion of Iraq.

Television shows like “24” and a few others that are
thematically driven by terrorist plots perpetuate this culture of
fear in American society.

I am not suggesting that the creators of these types of shows
are intentionally doing this to the American public. But these
shows are some of the agents responsible for maintaining this
lingering culture of fear in the United States.

Moreover, while I am not telling anyone not to watch the show, I
am advocating that we need to be more conscious of the social and
cultural impact that the mass media has on us. We should heed
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s pronouncement from his first
inaugural address that sometimes the only thing we have to fear is
fear itself.

Gilde is a third-year history student.