Although fear appeals and scare tactics have been used in clear and present public health emergencies such as COVID-19, the ethics of such public health communication interventions needs to be scrutinized. It pushes our survival instincts into high gear. 9Īs Irish Olympian John Treacy once said, ‘fear is a great motivator’. 10 The verdict is still out whether such campaigns are effective or not.
Soames Job, have argued that such campaigns are ineffective, 9 others, such as Kim Witte and Mike Allen found that ‘strong fear appeals and high-efficacy messages produce the greatest behavior change’. Visual health warnings on cigarette packaging, for example, are a case in point. 7 Fear appeals have also permeated public health campaigns. Even medical practitioners employ ‘fear-based medicine’ in clinical encounters when they try to coax patients to follow a course of action by issuing ‘if you don't, then …’ threats. 6 Parents use it to discipline children bosses to drive staff productivity. As a pioneer on the subject, Howard Leventhal explains, fear-arousing communication is a tool often used to persuade others to act and behave in a certain way. 5 The psychology literature refers to these scare tactics as ‘fear appeals’.įear appeals are nothing new. 4 ( The Purge's story revolves around the ‘purging’ or violent killing of people in a single night while emergency services are suspended.) Even the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, dissuades the public from disobeying the enhanced community quarantine with remarks like, ‘… If there is trouble or the situation arises that people fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them dead’.
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3 In Cainta, Rizal, a province north of Manila, local officials signal the start of the curfew by sounding the alarm from the horror movie The Purge (2013). In the country's National Capital Region, which has the most COVID-19 positive cases, most areas have an assigned town crier, who, while on a recurida or a mobile audio truck, threatens residents with fines of up to Php5,000 (US$100) and possible jail time for non-compliance with set curfew hours. Witness some cases in the Philippines as examples. 2 On top of this, other governments have resorted to rather extreme tactics, which play on people's fears to regulate behavior. To motivate people to take preventive measures, some heads of states used what may be characterized as the ‘friendlier’ strategies in the form of infographics, infomercials, and hashtags. 1 To combat the pandemic, most governments strongly enforced social-distancing, area-wide lockdowns and curfews, and contact-tracing of persons under investigation. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), took the world by surprise and, as of early April 2020, the virus has already claimed more than 80,000 lives and infected more than a million people around the globe.
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