THE age of global communication has come to our home.
My son spends hours on the computer with gamers around the world. I find my daughter talking to one friend in person and three others by phone, e-mail and internet chat room, all at the same time.
One hopes that global communication builds a better global community, but I’m not so sure. I have been dismayed by the amount of global media attention devoted to the production of fear.
One solitary cow on an Alberta farm is discovered to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Its worldwide publication shatters the Canadian beef industry.
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Life in a global village exposes one’s strengths and weaknesses, real or perceived, to the entire world. It means we can sell our products globally. But it also means we have to compete with the whole world to do it.
The world’s consumers flock to the seller supplying quality products at the lowest price. The winner tends to take all and massive corporations form around winners.
But for ordinary folks in smaller farms and businesses, it can be highly stressful. They wonder how they can survive if they have to compete with giants.
More disturbing is the fact that one’s weaknesses may be broadcast globally. To have the whole world informed about your single sick cow must be devastating.
Farmers have told me that they feel very vulnerable in this sort of world. It’s like living under a moving magnifying glass. Global exposure can destroy lives; it can foster a culture of fear.
“People have a right to know,” I’ve heard media pundits say.
But do they? Are we really entitled to know our neighbours’ weaknesses?
Knowledge is a form of power. In a competitive world, knowing another’s weaknesses allows us to exploit them, gain advantages.
But surely it is important to alert the public to serious danger? Of course.
But what are the real dangers? Who defines them? In Britain’s experience, BSE is relatively low risk.
Between 1989 and 1999, 176,442 cases of BSE were reported in Britain but so far only 132 deaths there have been definitely or probably attributed to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the illness that humans are thought to get from BSE-infected cattle.
By contrast, Statistics Canada tells us that in that same period, about 160 Canadians were killed and more than 700 struck by lightning.
More than 1,100 died and 17,000 were hospitalized in farm accidents. More than 30,000 died in motor vehicle crashes.
More than 70,000 were killed by pneumonia and flu.
Like BSE and SARS, these are monitorable, even preventable, but get little media coverage. Why the intense focus on certain risks or vulnerabilities to the neglect of others?
Well, fear sells papers and new dangers generate much more fear than the old ones we’ve learned to live with.
Danger also tends to be defined by those with strong voices – governments that have war or trade agendas to promote, corporations with products to sell, health departments that want their funding increased.
And these days, danger seems to be defined far more by urban consumers than rural producers.
Let’s encourage our media outlets when they use their resources to build community. Help them to resist selling fear.
Cam Harder is associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Western Producer.
