Snakes in the Media

Newspaper accounts can be an important influence on attitude and belief formation (Loker et al. 1999), especially when a person possesses no personal experience with an issue or an attitude object. For example, Riley and Decker (2000) found that the majority of questionnaire respondents who asserted having involvement with cougars referred to vicarious experiences, such as newspaper accounts or second-hand stories. Likewise, newspaper portrayals may be important in attitude development toward potentially dangerous wildlife species, such as bears (Slovic et al. 1974), cougars and rattlesnakes. Riley and Decker (2000) hypothesized that mass media reports of human-cougar conflicts were influential in people's perceptions of cougar densities and human attitudes toward cougars. Slovic et al. (1979) state that the sensationalism associated with accounts of venomous stings and bites makes such accounts memorable, and thus leads to an overestimate by people of the risk of fatal bite or sting due to animals such as rattlesnakes.

References

Loker, C. A., J. Shanahan, and D. J. Decker. 1999. The mass media and stakeholders' beliefs about suburban wildlife. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 4:7-26.

Riley, S. J. and D. J. Decker. 2000. Wildlife stakeholder acceptance capacity for cougars in Montana. Wildlife Society Bulletin 28:931-939.

Slovic, P., H. Kunreuther, and G. F. White. 1974. "Decision processes, rationality and adjustment to natural hazards", in Natural hazards: local, national, global. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Slovic, P., B. Fischhoff, and S. Lichtenstein. Rating the risks. Environment 21(3):14-39.