Saleh Raghib's List: The Culture of Fear Created by the Media

• Volkswagen's "Safe happens" campaign has generated the most buzz for its brutal depiction of real car crashes. In the 30-second spots, unsuspecting passengers, played by stunt people, are side-swiped, cut off and sent flailing around in their seats like crash-test dummies.
• "You have to try something new to get through to people,"
• anti-drunk-driving ads sponsored by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, a teenage boy is launched through a car windshield.
• "shockvertising" -- a frightening and often gory new way to get the message across in a world of sensory overload.
• "

  We chose to go with a high-impact approach to talk about the consequences of drinking and driving," says the ICBC's manager of road safety, Laurie Baker.
• chose

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• Its misinformation masquerades as fact to boost circulation, readership, or larger viewing audiences, as well as lie for state and corporate interests.
• s or misstates the truth
• Reports feature overdramatized crime and vice, including murder, assault, robbery, vandalism, rape and sexual assault
• America's media stress audience size and advertising revenue. Sensationalism sells, accomplishing both goals at the expense of real news, information and analysis.

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• 'Get Unhooked' campaign had been "highly effective", resulting in its anti-smoking helpline, website and TV stages being contacted more than 820,000 times during the campaign.
• The Department of Health said that the ads had been designed to confront smokers with the "controlling nature" of their addiction in order to help them stop smoking.

• Car brands, for instance, regularly use crash test dummies to show how effective their machinery is in a crash. And Vicks, formerly a product to suppress a cold, has created a whole new category on chemists' shelves with its brand First Defence.
• How many of us had a pump-action dispenser of "protective hand foam" on our desks, before the First Defence ads informed us it wasn't just people with coughs and sneezes we need to avoid, we can also catch a cold through touch? An ad that made us afraid of catching colds by shaking hands.

• Profit-driven news organizations are under great pressure to boost ratings by sensationalizing the news: focusing attention on lurid, highly emotional stories, often featuring a bizarre cast of characters and a gripping plot but devoid of significance to most people's lives. From Tonya Harding to O.J. Simpson to Elian Gonzalez, major news outlets have become more and more dependent on these kind of tabloid soap operas to keep profits high.

• Pressure groups, charities and even governments have employed graphic imagery and blunt slogans to highlight everything from animal cruelty to the dangers of drink-driving. 
  
   Canadian smokers are soon to be bombarded with pictures of diseased organs on the health warnings plastered across their cigarette packets.

• Media sensationalism is defined as the style of reporting news to public which involves use of fear, anger, excitement and crude thrill undertaken by the media to increase the viewership, ratings and lastly profits.
• The reporting is merely done to up their sales and grab the attention.