Fear appeals are often used as a tactic to raise attention to an issue and scare people into action. They are now widely recognized by publicists, campaigners, politicians and fear entrepreneurs as a legitimate instrument for influencing behavior. According to one study, a fear appeal ‘is recognized as a distinctive type of argumentation by empirical researchers, who see it as a kind of argument used to threaten a target audience with a fearful outcome (most typically that outcome is the likelihood of death) in order to get the audience to adopt a recommended response.’ Like Plato’s Noble Lie, fear appeals are justified on the grounds that regardless of the facts, they reveal a higher truth. Fear promotion is advocated because ‘fear could be beneficial not only for the way it encouraged people to act in safer ways: it could also promote more “civilized” behavior.’
Frank Furedi, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century, (p. 99)
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