The Effects of Mass Media on Panic and Trauma in Zombie Fiction

The connection between the mass media, trauma, and panic in survival situations is undeniably strong, especially in survival situations such as an outbreak or zombie apocalypse. In these high-stress circumstances, mass media outlets become a critical source of information. However, as shown in various zombie media works, including George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, information provided by mass media outlets is sometimes unreliable and untrustworthy. This can expand the feelings of fear, panic, and deepening societal trauma. The impact of the media on personal relationships in these kinds of situations is significant, as fear, panic, and distrust break down the social fabric of a community.

Mass media holds tremendous power in shaping the public perception of information during crisis situations, essentially having its views at its mercy. When disaster strikes a community, media outlets have a captive audience, and the information relayed is often accepted without a second thought. Media outlets oftentimes, like in Night of the Living Dead, create a sense of fear and panic, which evolves into trauma. In the film, the media delivers fragmented and conflicting reports during a zombie outbreak.

The portrayal of the media as a source of unreliable information directly contributes to a growing sense of fear, leading to chaos in these communities. The feeling of panic spirals into trauma as some characters have to deal with surviving while at the same time trying to make sense of the conflicting messages from the outside world. This film’s media coverage illustrates how information overload, when not properly filtered for clarity and correctness, can heighten societal breakdown in times of crisis.

Beyond George Romero’s film, in other zombie media, like Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic, the CDC uses an apocalyptic scenario as a metaphor to stress the importance of disaster situation preparedness. The context of this work is more lighthearted, but the underlying message emphasizes how mass media outlets in crises, even though they seem harmless, can influence public perception of information and stress the need for preparation awareness. By drawing parallels to real-world issues, both Romero and the CDC show that the impact of mass media’s role in times of disaster can’t be underestimated. In both, the portrayal of survival scenarios in zombie outbreaks or pandemics reflects how media can shape and create fear.

As someone new to the zombie fiction world, I find it fascinating how George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was able to connect zombies to some of the most important social issues we’ve had in our country’s history. The subtle connections between how the media displayed information during war times compared to the outbreak, then to bigger issues like the racial injustice metaphors the character Ben showed, are so interesting to examine for such an older film. Romero presents the apocalypse as a sort of collapse of society that reflects the tensions in our country around this time, including racial tensions and overall fear of the unknown. Night of the Living Dead captures how mass panic and fear due to media outlets can break down social structures.

As the media already instills so much fear into its viewers during this period, the media’s impact on personal relationships becomes evident in times of crisis as well. In Night of the Living Dead, characters like Barbara and Mr. Cooper are great representations of how societal fears can dismantle relationships.

Barbara, who is paralyzed by shock for much of the movie due to her brother being engulfed by a pack of zombies, struggles to make connections with everyone else in the group, even though she is one of the first people at the safe house. The established trauma combined with the continuous fear instilled by the media made Barbara a poster child for how the media impacts personal relationships.

For Mr. Cooper, his stubbornness and need to be in control throughout the film, even with the information he was given, caused him to become irrational and make selfish decisions. This affected how he was able to connect with his new peers while they tried to make rational choices in a disastrous situation. He is a representation of how fear can distort judgment and undermine cooperativeness in a crisis.

Various types of zombie media, not just film, discuss the relationship between zombie fiction and real-world issues. Like in Lorenzo Servitje’s article about the relation of graphic medicine to zombie fiction, he discusses how media, books, and comics contribute to zombie culture and its cultural and societal influences.

Another article by Tara C. Smith, Zombie Infections: Epidemiology, Treatment, and Prevention, discusses the fear surrounding rapidly spreading infections in zombie scenarios, which parallels our real-world reaction to diseases like COVID-19. Just like how mass media portrayal of zombie infections amplifies public fears in zombie fiction, real-world media during crises also magnifies panic about diseases. The panic of the situation spreads much faster than the actual infection.

Another example of the media’s impact is in The Walking Dead Chapter One, where the media is accessed mostly by radio broadcasts and is circulated most often by word of mouth. So, in situations where you don’t know people too well, you need to have a lot of trust in them for your survival. But, in this case, sustained and established relationships can fall by the wayside due to the unknown fear and panic in crisis.

The relationship between Rick and Shane, who are long-time police partners, is tarnished by the actions between Shane and Lori, Rick’s wife, that happened in Rick’s absence and contributed to levels of stress due to being the person people look to for help. In those situations, people can break emotionally or physically being in stressful, critical positions like that. In the case of Rick and Shane, fear ultimately cost Shane his life. The loss of reliable information not only affected their survival but also deepened mistrust between people. The breakdown of surrounding communication is reflected in the way personal relationships deteriorate quickly, much like zombie infections.

Mass media’s portrayals of zombie infections often reflect deeper meanings of social anxieties, fear, panic, and trauma in relation to pandemics, infections, outbreaks, and total loss of control. The different examples of how the media can generate panic and trauma in these situations show how these media can expand feelings of fear, foster social or emotional breakdown, and affect personal relationships to the point of no return. Through films like Night of the Living Dead, books like The Walking Dead, and various articles, we see how media-induced panic disrupts personal relationships and contributes to societal breakdown. Moving forward, further thinking into the psychology of mass media in crisis situations could deepen our understanding of how media shapes both individual and collective trauma.