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Media constructions of fear
in the outbreak of an
epidemic disease
Chronicles of
dengue in
Argentina
The case of dengue fever in Argentina
95
Maximillano Korstanje
Department of Economics, University of Palermo,
Buenos Aires, Argentina, and
Received 24 January 2016
Revised 16 March 2016
Accepted 14 April 2016
Babu George
College of Business and Economics, Fort Hays State University,
Hays, Kansas, USA
Abstract
Purpose – After almost a decade, the re-appearance of dengue fever in Argentina caused panic and
fears. Unlike Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, where prevention policies have been followed, the future of
dengue is uncertain in Argentina; the present paper does not have political affiliation but the purpose
of this paper is to emphasizes the role that mass media plays in the coverage of epidemics.
Design/methodology/approach – In moments of disorder, uncertainness or disaster, societies
experience a shift in the ways they perceive their reality.
Findings – In the times, media plays a dominant role in constructing the reality that the authors get to
consume. Such reality is reflective of media’s own biases and those of the vested interests that control
the media.
Originality/value – This essay draws from social psychology and allied literature to highlight how
the recent reemergence of dengue in Argentina was employed as a lever for achieving a range of
ulterior objectives.
Keywords Argentina, Globalization, Mobility, Media, Panic, Dengue
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
Dengue is viral infection spread among humans by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and it has
been constantly in the news due to its global reach. It has become a major epidemic in
the tropical and subtropical areas due to radical changes in the weather and the
absence of licensed vaccines (Murray et al., 2013). General symptoms vary from high
fever to internal bleeding; in rare circumstance, the condition can become fatal. The
epidemic remained latent until 2015 when a new stronger outbreak surfaced, jointly
with other viruses such as Zika and Chikungunya. Dengue in the Americas costs
approximately $2.1 billion per year (Shepard et al., 2011). In March of 2009, Argentina
faced an outbreak of dengue, a disease originally eradicated in the 1950s.
One of the most frightening aspects of dengue is its presence in geographical
locations that are characterized by poverty and pauperization. The mosquito spawns in
brackish waters close to the doorsteps of poor neighborhoods. This is the reason why
dengue is identified as an illness of the poor. North-Western provinces of Argentina
have reported the most cases; yet, with the passing of years, the virus has gradually
spread all over the country – including the capital district of Buenos Aires. Infections
are exponentially mobile in a world characterized by mobility.
International Journal of Emergency
Services
Vol. 5 No. 1, 2016
pp. 95-104
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2047-0894
DOI 10.1108/IJES-01-2016-0001
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The Argentine mass media played a key role in spreading panic but not so much in
sharing scientific information. Mass media performance in various cases of natural
disasters in the first world has gained some academic attention (Quarantelli, 1975, 1982,
1990; Wenger and Friedman, 1986; Quarantelli and Wenger, 1989; Rodriguez et al.,
2004; Tierney, 1994; Mcneil and Quarantelli, 2008). However, media behavior in such
contexts as this has not been rigorously investigated yet. One of the most important
scholars in the study of panic, E.L. Quarantelli (2001), confirms that “The essence of
panic is the overt behaviour that is marked by the setting aside of everyday social norms,
even the strongest, such as parents abandoning their young children trying to save
themselves in a life threatening crisis. Often implicit, there is the assumption in this view
that such a flight behaviour will occur only if there is a perception that there is a
possibility of escaping the threat. Disaster researchers in particular have emphasized that
hopes of escape rather than hopelessness is what is involved. Persons who perceived
themselves as totally trapped such as in sunken submarines or collapsed coal mines do
not panic because they see no way of getting away from the threat” (p. 5).
Media sources are often blamed for risk amplification or risk miscalculations
(Ng, 2014). Media coverage of hazards plays an important role in setting and reinforcing
public perceptions (Ali, 2013). Media narratives of crises are increasingly informed by
the changing conditions under which we conduct out social lives. Globalization of
media and an associated increase in idea mobility are two key considerations in this
regard. Media forces impact social constructions of disease outbreaks like dengue fever.
The hope or hopelessness that the narrative of the disease provides becomes the
decision logic for prevention and recovery efforts (Leitch and Bohensky, 2014). As an
essay review, not empirically based research, we only discuss the main guidelines of
how fear is instilled in population during the dengue outbreaks in 2009 and 2016 in
Argentina and part of Latin America. Though these viewpoints come from a much
broader ethnography that gathers more information, it only starts from a conceptual
discussion which should be framed as an opinion-piece. The information shared in this
discussion is important because it combines informal sources with personal experience
in the fieldwork as well as some isolated interviews.
Fear in contemporary society
One of the pioneer books regarding to the role of fear in modern society was authored by
Ulrich Beck, titled The Risk Society. In this seminal text, Beck argues that Chernobyl’s
accident marked the end of a cycle where the conceptualizations of progress were evaluated
quite mechanically. As a project, the modernity emphasized on the use of “technology as a
standalone system” to mitigate risks, or threats. This event showed how sometimes
technology may be conducive to a state of disaster (Beck, 2006). In a similar vein, A.
Mozgovaya investigated the long term effects of Chernobyl. While 40 of the interviewees
did manifest their terrible fear that a similar event might happen again, around 16 percent
responded with indifference – as if it were a singular event. We humans tend to downplay
future risks, because of our belief that our technologies will constantly improve to mitigate
them (Mozgovaya, 1993). The passage from modernity to late-modernity is characterized
by the idea that nobody feels safe anymore, in any place or time, but adapting to that
climate is the only way to survive. This adaptation is often equated with courage.
In our times, disasters not only seem imminent but also irreversible. Beck observes
that risks are carefully tied to economic growth – so much so that those who raise
voices against risks are classified and mocked as progress hating luddites. Thus,
society’s responses to risks are largely muted in the big scheme of things. Our
postmodern economies allude to the exacerbation of mass-consumption and the logic of
neglect. For us, economic profitability from a risky venture is sufficient to downplay
the risk associated with it (Beck, 2006). The political power only reacts for those
dangers that affect their economies or the chain of production (Bauman, 2013). Risk,
as the theme has been discussed by social science, creates a psychological dependency
of citizens respecting to officialdom. If risk is a social construction that invigorates the
economy of insurances, no less true is that concepts such as equality, wealth and
democracy, have set the pace of security, conflict and fear. Most certainly, the idea of
tragedy alludes to the internal world of subject not by the effects, but by the violation to
the threshold of control.
The concept of uncertainty is of crucial importance to understand the roots of
tragedy. Other interesting perspective about what people consider shocking is brought
by R. Leurs who examines through Kantian eyes, how attack against WTC in
September-11 can be expressed in terms of sublimity. The philosopher is convinced
that the concepts of mathematical and dynamic sublime can be applied to the study of
tragedies. In fact, Leurs synthesizes “the mathematical sublime occurs when an object is
too large to be perceived as a whole, while the dynamical sublime is caused by frightening
phenomena. In both instances, displeasure is succeeded by pleasure: the mathematical
sublime indicates that we can make use of rhetorical reason and the dynamical sublime
reveals a respect for the moral law within us” (Leurs, 2008, p. 3). What Leurs is discussing
is that disasters affect the life of society appealing to the surprise factor by which there are
no alternative courses of action. In this context, the role of media as ethical custodians of
information and its dissemination needs some special scrutiny.
The way we practice science has something to do with our fears. Even time honored
scientific practices have become subservient to the dominant design of times. Paul
Virilio offers a radical criticism against the legitimacy of contemporary scientific
practice and the subsequent net of experts. Science did discover and invent things but
did not do an equally good job at prioritizing the quality of knowledge. Its objectivity
lies in the observation of facts rooted in reality. The digital world seems to have
perplexed even the scientifically minded ones: it has blurred time, prompting scientists to
study thousands of simultaneous events and to invent causations from mere correlations
and scientific policy makers to misuse such findings to substantiate their pet wishes.
According to Virilo, the reality is not any-longer the object of scientific research. Virilio’s
work inspires a new reflection about the design of calamities like dengue outbreaks in
modern times. His critique gives a conceptual model to understand the current “show of
catastrophe” televised 24 hours a day to a global audience. Similar to the argument of
Baudrillard, Virilio is convinced that humankind has to come back to an ethic of science
whose concern it is to protect the integrity of human beings (Virilio, 2010).
Media and calamities
Even though social psychologists have devoted considerable attention in determining
how mass media works in moments of uncertainness and terror (Bartlett, 1932; Lorge,
1936; Lazarfeld et al., 1944; Cooper and Jahoda, 1947; Freidson, 1953; Klapper, 1963;
Papageorgis, 1963), it is often assumed that only after the September-11 attacks to the
World Trade Centre and a frightening small-pox outbreak, scholars considered that
mass media should play a pivotal role in keeping the population calm (Fischhoff, 2006).
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that disasters need an allegory or archetype
of similarly minded events. As Hovland (1953) put it, Orson Well’s Mars triggered
an untrammeled panic following the previous simulacra of Second World War in
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American soil. This means that if the event is completely new, the audience may reject
it or avoid the potential effects. The sense of semi-familiarity is of paramount
importance to understand the panic-flights. Dahlhamer and Nigg conducted a survey to
determine the relation between rumor and the climate of fear. The earthquake in Los
Angeles (1979) evidenced that attention may be turned to events other than the disaster
itself. Some psychological filters implanted into us by means of our formal education
not only mislead us to avoid real dangers but also offer specific interpretations of
events, as defined by vested interest groups.
Media construction of reality and underlying facts often bear no semblance to real
life (Dupuy, 1999). T. Wachtendorf admits that, “although a strong argument can be
made that an audience recognizes the difference between appropriate social actions in a
movie vs appropriate behavior in real life, these representations are sometimes the only
experience people have with disaster. The meanings these representations convey will
therefore influence how we interpret real events around us” (Wachterndorf, 1999, p. 3).
Sigmund Freud was a pioneer in understanding not only the subjective nature of fear,
but also how it serves to keep the integrity of intra-psychic mind. The subject attempts
to construct an object to avoid. In doing so, it may resolve the pervasiveness of feelings
and the derived psychological dislocations. Any child, who loves and hates parents at
the same time may experience personality dislocation unless an object like fear is
imposed (Freud, 1998). Psychoanalysis as it has been formulated by latter day
specialists such as Klein (1987), Ward (2001), Winnicott (1996) and Bleichmar, also
agrees with such assertions.
The mechanism of blaming the victim is a proof of what Freud stipulated one
century back. Ryan (1971) described the disciplinary mechanism of control over
ghettoized black communities. This tactic consisted of conferring abstract features to
concrete groups. That way, the victim is blamed as a source of the problem. Typically,
local crimes are attributed to poor communities because of their living conditions
instead of the social forces that generate poverty. In this token, M. Korstanje (2011)
examined the complex case of swine flu in Argentina. This study reveals that poverty
exerts a double fascination for the journalists. Although poverty is the conduit for
many diseases and multiple other problems that affect contemporary society, poverty
is more a result of fundamental issues in social organization than the cause of those
issues. In his book entitled Blaming the Victim, William Ryan explains that poverty and
ethnic minorities are commoditized and offered as easy answers for many disgraces or
disasters.
The programs of assistance to protect more vulnerable agents in industrial societies
not only failed but also need pretexts to continue operating. This is the reason why the
tactic of blaming the victim consists in blurring the dichotomy between the universal
and the particular. “Elsewhere I proposed the dimension of exceptionalismuniversalism as the ideological underpinning for these two contrasting approaches
to the analysis and solution of social problems that are private, voluntarily, remedial
special, local and exclusive. Such arrangements imply that problems occur to specially
defined categories of persons in an unpredictable manner. The problems are unusual,
even unique, they are exceptions to the rule, they occur as a result of individual defect,
accident or unfortunate circumstance […] the individualistic viewpoint, on the other
hand, is reflected in arrangement that are public, legislated, promotive or preventive,
general, national and inclusive”.
The power of this ideology explains why poverty exists but does not provide any
valid solution to that. And, media does not care: it knows people are after pre-conceived
and simplistic solutions that they already know of. Over last decades, this viewpoint
that demonizes poverty set the pace to new subtler forms of discrimination. Jean
Baudrillard was one of the philosophers who have devoted considerable attention to
the study of fear and media. His legacy poses the question in a serious debate
considering not only how reality is built, but also how disasters are covered and
interposed. Baudrillard’s insight influenced the approaches of Korstanje (2010) who
recently studied the connection between disasters with the emergence of a new
resilience in cultural studies. Stimulating a fertile ground to discuss to what extent the
media created a parallel reality, enrooted in the uncertainty of future, Baudrillard
reminds us that in the absence of a clear diagnosis of reasons for a state of emergency,
it is impossible to establish successful plans for risk mitigation. Any attempt to reduce
risks in the real world will create new unplanned risks according to the principle of
reversibility (Baudrillard, 2003).
Media (De) construction of dengue in Las Pampas
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that often the communication process is
aimed at reinforcing the racial asymmetries present in societies. This was exactly what
happened in the dengue’s outbreak in the March of 2009 in Buenos Aires. Poor sections
in the society were not responsible for the situation, but the virus dissemination
impacted these groups more heavily. This stigmatized them to close a hermeneutic
circle of discrimination and exclusion conducive to status quo. Economically poor
newcomers from the North-Western and North-Western provinces were treated with
fear because they were potential infected agents. Earliest reported symptoms of dengue
can be traced way back to the Chin Dynasty of 265-420 AD (Murray et al., 2013). Yet,
it was interpreted as something highly localized with clear attributions to local poverty.
An Anglo-audience is known to be more prone to be alert to evacuation news or
emergencies than other collectives such as Afro-Americans or Latinos. According to
many studies, in zones of risk, the Latin community in the USA completely ignore risk
factors (Pokras, et al., 2007; Blaikie et al., 1994; Perry and Nelson, 1991; Benavides,
2013). In the case of dengue in Argentina, their ethnic affiliation, jointly to Amerindian
groups, helped the powerful white minority to make an easy identification. This
ethnocentric discourse operated in the fields of ideology and fantasy rather than facts:
however, it was more convincing than any fact, too.
As Fischoff put it, “People have difficulty making conclusions about events that
they have never experienced. In effects, they do not really know what they want or
what it would mean to them” (Fischhoff, 2006, p. 476). The gap filled by the panic was
possible because of two main reasons. Dengue cannot be prevented or cured by any
vaccine. Second, potential infected persons may be closed in geographical terms. The
outbreak was initially found in the Province of Chaco located in the north of Argentina,
on the border with Paraguay. Swiftly, dengue was spread to other provinces such as
Salta, Catamarca and Buenos Aires. At the moment, Health Bureau registered more
than 35,000 infected persons. At a hospital in Salta, scientists have come across a case
of dengue in a new-born baby who had been infected during gestation. At a preliminary
stage, Buenos Aires inhabitants were not familiar with dengue. They feared that many
northern citizens living in Buenos Aires might be fertile ground for a new infestations.
The virus showed its darkest side by discriminating some citizens against others.
The media covered the outbreak, amidst calls demanding government intervention.
But intervention for what? Intervention aimed at acting on pre-conceived notions
involving subtle tones of racism? Some media columnists proposed to ban the
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North-South migration while others exhibited their concern for the condition of life of
poor indigenous population in the north. Some argued the government should move its
resources to expand a ghettoization in the Northern provinces. The media’s insistence
on the number of infected people on each side reinforced the ideological discourse of
isolation. As Freud has evidenced, the introduced sentiment of panic is not
disorganized, it allows the establishment power to maintain the social fragmentation of
society. Political asymmetries are just deepened in context of emergency.
The gossip machine propelled by the media paralyzed the workforce in days.
Workers en masse went to the doctor to ensure they did not hold the symptoms of
dengue. The health system collapsed because of the rise in panic-driven consultations
and many patients who needed actual care were left out. People who had stayed in or
visited the North of the country were suspected to be in contact with dengue. If they
suffered a classic influenza, their relatives and neighbors isolated them until they could
assess whether it was dengue. Not surprisingly, these exaggerated expressions ignored
the fact that some north-western migrants had been living in the city for more than
30 years. But, the media preferred the current migration narrative. So if the outbreak of
dengue was recent, there was no reason to think that ethnic minorities were all infected,
or that they represented a direct threat for rest of the population.
One of the interviewees of our study manifested a clear sense of racism against the
minority groups, “It is unfortunate that dengue does not discriminate by class or race,
this not only is a fault of State but also those niggers, aborigines, and immigrants who
live in misery. The question is why should I face this situation? […] If you ask me, an
interesting solution to this epidemic is the isolation of Buenos Aires from Salta, Chaco
and Catamarca. You figure out, 20 percent of mosquitos in Buenos Aires are Aedes
aegypti, whether we permit the entrance of travelers coming from these provinces or
from Bolivia or Paraguay, current cases will be multiplied.” Various other expressions
of racism and ethnic discrimination arose during the outbreak and were also covered
by various journalists in accordance with the frames of their media superiors.
The return of dengue in 2016
In 2016, a new virus outbreak surfaced in Brazil but expanded to other Latin American
countries such as Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. This event struck while I was
carrying out fieldwork in Buenos Aires, fully dedicated to the Sanctuary of Cromañon,
in Buenos Aires. Many of my interviewees were not only scared by the untrammeled
advance of dengue, but by the lack of efficient programs of mitigation in the public
sphere. During days, TV programs and newspapers such as Clarin or La Nación
covered the news of a group of citizens in Vicente Lopez, a neighborhood located at the
north of Delta, where eight persons were infected in the same street. Baptized as the
neighborhood of dengue, La Nación reported “in Vicente Lopez, St Monasterio 100,
almost eight cases of dengue were confirmed. The rest of the neighbors are not only in a
panic, they also claim that there is a lack of assistance from the state” (La Nación;
Czubaj, 2016). The same column details the failure in the protocol that prevented
officials to be duly notified of the new cases alongside the same street. The reporter
insistently repeats the limitations of the health and sanitation departments to do their
job whenever citizens do not cooperate. In what way do they not cooperate?
Patiently, journalists reconstructed how the first person was infected, and the
evolution of the virus. The first infected case was Pablo Navajas who had hospitalized
in Mater Dei Hospital. He was infected by a friend who came from Misiones, a northern
province where dengue is endemic. Later, one of his neighbors, Marcha Chantada, did
not open her doors in order for inspectors to fumigate her home. As with Pablo, Marcha
was treated at the hospital for the same symptoms: high fever, muscle pain, spasms and
weakness. Although this case does not indicate the same coverage of all the media,
it points to tourists as agents of dengue, a similar argument that was found in informal
interviews extracted from our fieldwork.
Antonella 26 years old, said that she had no idea what dengue is, but knew from
watching TV that it was concentrated in the Northern Provinces, Jujuy, Salta, Misiones
and Tucuman. She thought, erroneously, that infected people could transmit the virus
(by the mosquito) throughout their whole lives, and therefore, this idea was a very
frightening concern:
I am student of philosophy, I love what I study and want to help people to make a better
world, however, and Dengue is a big problem that will not let me sleep. Despite the warning of
the government not to travel to Brazil or to the North, holiday-makers ignore how dangerous
these places are. I feel that if I turn infected, I will never have children because they can be
infected as well. People need to understand that modern mobility, tourism and holidays are
channels for the virus to expand.
This contrasted to Raul’s viewpoint, which focussed on the role of the state to mitigate
the effects and potential expansion of the sickness. Over the years, the state abandoned
its citizens to manage their own security, which oscillated from the problem of reducing
the local crime rates, toward the control of pandemics. In which case, “I am 58 years old,
I do not feel fear of this, I have lived the same situation as Nilo fever. I am under the
suspicion that we, the lay citizens, are unimportant for politicians who only reach us
whenever they need our votes, in times of elections. If you ask me, corruption and the
greed for money by some politicians constructed a gap between citizens and their
representatives. What dengue shows, seems to be the inter-class struggle between the
have and have-nots.”
Raul, unlike Antonella, understood the problem from the viewpoint of class struggle,
confirming the lack of protection by the state in context of emergencies. Antonella, on
the other hand, appealed to the problem of mobility as the main reason why dengue
could not be controlled. Basically, in both we found key indicators that allowed a
reconstruction of how media helped form social imaginaries. In this vein, media
presented the virus as a problem of laziness or idleness. For popular parlance, either
people had ignored the alerts not to travel abroad, to dangerous destinations such as
Brazil or Ecuador, or they had not cleaned gardens or places where accumulation of old
water hosts the eggs of Aedes aegypti. To the damned condition of poverty, is added
people who travel from the provinces who should be placed in quarantine, or, as Raul
observed, the lack of state intervention to follow an all-encompassing plan to mitigate
or eradicate these mosquitos. What this paper pointed out is that in the context of
emergencies, for example, in pandemics such as dengue, Zika or any other virus, the
political contexts of affected society flourishes. Here two assumptions should be made.
At a first glance, media and journalism played a disciplinary role by tracing the roots of
the virus in order to give recommendations or warnings to the rest of society. These
tips vary from preventive measures to details about what individuals can do in case of
being infected by dengue. However, in so doing, media affects one of the tenets of
societal fabric, direct contact. I have observed this in other pandemics such as SARS,
swine flu and so forth, restrictions to mobility and direct contact are two of the first
things to be automatically canceled or are legally discouraged. Second, the rise of
racism or any other discriminatory attitudes, for example, stereotypes or prejudice
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against Northern Argentina turn out stronger. The division between European white
Argentines located in “the pampa gringa,” Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Cordoba and the
Southern provinces, has been historically pitted against the Northern cultures more
associated with neighboring countries such as Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. While the
former cultures were esteemed as civilized or sensitive to economic progress, the latter
ones were seen as lazier, uneducated or echoing populism. Dengue not only enlarged
the gap between these two sides but also introduced immobility as a prophylactic tactic
of prevention. This does not mean dengue produced racism but it woke up old
prejudices that were lying dormant in the society. The fear instilled by the media lead
others to be physically immobilized in order not to cross out the sense of security given
by the exemplary center. Though gradually spreading in Northern provinces, dengue
did not resonate in public opinion until it arrived to Buenos Aires. The position of the
state to handle or leave behind risks depending on the affected class or city was one of
the constant reactions in case of virus outbreaks. In Latin America or in Argentina at
least, emergencies evinced our miseries and material asymmetries already-existent
since colonial times. A third point that was not checked in this review but would be
continued is the need of consuming disasters as a main entertainment industry. This
would be a good point of entry for future discussions. The current obsession with
death, disasters and bad news, has a profound cultural background.
Conclusion
For the victims of dengue and their kith and kin, the epidemic is saddening. For all
others, it is a “media event.” When the media goes beyond reporting calamities to
transform themselves into “fact factories” to promote specific political aims, it is very
likely that society’s priorities related to disease prevention and cure get displaced. This
is evidenced by the reaction to the 2016 dengue outbreak in Argentina. What the
present paper reveals is the existence of a definite ideology that works in the context of
disaster and the media’s role in propelling the same.
The blaming the victim tactic that we saw in the media not only presented a biased
argument on the causes of disaster, but also tried to reinforce the geographical
boundaries between the elites and the rest of social strata. Surely, unlike Northern
neighboring countries such as Bolivia, Brazil or Paraguay, which worked hard to deter
the advance of dengue in their respective territories, Argentina lacked a plan of
contingency. These are all facts. However, the panic not only reinvigorated the
sentiment of belonging to avoid the fragmentation but also portrayed a biased image of
some aboriginal ethnicities. Instead of questioning the intervention of the state to
coordinate efforts of hospitalization, the media created a pervasive meaning of poverty.
The poor were indeed vulnerable; many were affected by the epidemic. However,
stretching the same to advocate that they should be gathered, isolated and ghettoized
serves no purpose but to appease some of the key constituencies in the population.
Dengue woke up two nightmares: one, the subtle racism that characterized some
sectors of Argentinian society; two, the inefficiency of the health system beyond the
boundaries of Buenos Aires.
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Corresponding author
Maximillano Korstanje can be contacted at: maxikorstanje@arnet.com.ar
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