The role of social media in spreading the culture of fear during risks and their representations among a sample of the Egyptian public

Since the late 1990s, the so-called "culture of fear" has spread, as a response to the community’s promotion, through its multiple communication systems, of a climate of fear resulting from the increase in general risks surrounding individuals in their local communities and the outside world, such as the spread of incurable diseases and the disappearance of children. Environmental pollution, the increase in crime rates, weapons of mass destruction, and other dangers, in addition to the emergence of daily fears among a large number of people related to food systems, raising children and lifestyle. This has led some to believe that the creation and promotion of fear is a product of political campaigns and pressure groups supported by media systems. Although there were a number of opponents to the term “fear culture”, they understood that fear and culture have become highly related terms as a result of individuals routinely exposed to fear.
With the fact that the media has become one of the most powerful and influential social institutions in the current era, the debate has escalated among researchers about whether communication messages seek to attract the attention of the public through using fear approaches and their focus on the problems and threats that surround them more than the transmission of information, especially with the increasing impacts of social media networks recently in our daily life, and with the increasing number of individuals who depend on it as a main source of information and do not have direct experiences with many of the issues they are exposed to.
If communicating and communication in times of disasters and risks - including the spread of epidemics and pandemics - do not have established standards or principles; that is because they are events out of the ordinary, especially when the situation worsens and scientists and governments have to communicate with the public through appropriate means of communication, and it is possible that these communications will result in exaggeration, misunderstanding or simplification of the situation.
This study raises many issues, the most important of which is the identification of the extent of Facebook's use of fear appeals at the time of the spread of the Corona pandemic, and its role in spreading fear discourse by spreading stories and terms that give threats new dimensions. The study also provides explanations for the patterns of behavior change at the time of the spread of the risk of the Coronavirus under the theory of protection motivation theory, according to which the behavior of the individual is determined according to his assessment of the severity of the risk, the probability of facing it and his beliefs about the effectiveness of the behaviors presented to avoid the danger and his ability to do them.
The study used quantitative and qualitative approach in collecting data, it used the survey questionnaire and focus groups discussion to find the relationship between exposure to the Facebook network and the formation of feelings of anxiety and fear within the framework of the theory of protection motivation with the addition of a new variable to it: Exposure to negative stories and news related to the disease through
The most important results of the study came to confirm that one of the most important motives for the respondents' awareness of the danger is their exposure to negative stories and news on the Facebook network, such as the lack of places in hospitals, the unavailability of the necessary treatment, and that infection with the virus leads to death. In addition to proving the existence of a relationship between the degrees of the individual's fear, whose symptoms are a feeling of anxiety, threat, and a strong sleep disturbance, and making sure that the disease is inevitable, and his quest to search for more information about the disease and the behaviors required to be followed for prevention.