Fear-Mongering or Fact-Driven? Illuminating the Interplay of Objective Risk and Emotion-Evoking Form in the Response to Epidemic News

ABSTRACT

This study examined the veracity of the common assumption that news coverage of epidemic outbreaks spawns heightened fears and risk perceptions. An online experiment with 1,324 participants investigated the interplay of the form of news coverage (factual/emotion-laden) and key aspects of actual risk (low/high vulnerability, low/high severity) on audience responses. Participants read one of eight versions of a newspaper article followed by measures on risk perceptions, negative affect, behavioral intentions, and perceived sensationalism. Risk perceptions and fear were primarily driven by objective risk characteristics, whereas emotion-laden news form only increased perceptions of disease severity, not of fear or personal vulnerability.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Funding

This study is part of the E-com@eu project. The research leading to these results has received funding from the Commission of the European Communities Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 278763. The study does not necessarily reflect the Commission’s views and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area.

Notes

¹ The panel is representative (ISO 26362 certified), consisting of approximately 20.000 active members that were recruited offline based on random samplings of individuals and households.

² More detailed information on sample sizes and characteristics per condition are available from the corresponding author.

³ MANOVA was chosen because all dependent variables are conceptually related. Further, as they are moderately positively correlated (range: r = .284 to .621), MANOVA is an acceptable procedure following Tabachnick and Fidell (2007).

⁴ Information on Ms and SDs of perceived sensationalism are available from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the Commission of the European Communities Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 278763. The study does not necessarily reflect the Commission’s views and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area.