In the last few weeks we have repeatedly stumbled across the “WIZE.LIFE” website, which is currently confusing a lot of users with its headlines.
In other words, official reports are taken here and given a headline that scares many users. We doubt whether this is the right method, but oh well. At the moment there are inquiries about the following article:
“They come out of the forest, demand money and stab us - warning about this duo!”
Here is a request from a user: “I don’t believe that, please check.”
We have checked it and know that this is a police report because we also reported on it on December 30, 2016.
However, not with this headline but with: “Public investigation into attempted robbery in Limmer”
We would like to reproduce this content here:
The investigators are using phantom images to search for two men who tried to rob a 20-year-old on the corner of Sichelstrasse and Holzrehre and injured him with a knife.
The 20-year-old was walking on the Holzrehre connecting path on December 16, 2016, around 11 p.m., when the duo suddenly came up to him from a forest near Sichelstrasse and demanded money. One of the two was holding a knife in his hand. After the young man handed over his wallet and told them that he had no money, one of the two perpetrators injured his hand with a knife. The two then fled into the forest without any prey.
The people being sought have a southern appearance, are around 1.70 meters tall, both had a short, black beard at the time of the crime and were each wearing black leather jackets. The man with the knife was wearing blue jeans with noticeable red stitching on the inside, white “Nike” shoes and a red wool hat. His accomplice had black hair slicked back and was wearing blue jeans and black shoes, probably also from the “Nike” brand.
The West Police Station will receive information on 0511 109-3920.
Source: Hanover Police Department
Recognize alarmism
About alarmism: when headlines cause fear. There are many different platforms that work with alarmist titles and use this method to exaggerate individual aspects. Mind you, these are not false reports, you shouldn't assume that.
Dramaticness of ordinary things
A simple indication is the depiction of everyday things in a dramatized form. What was initially thought to be harmless is now classified as a major danger by alarmism. In addition: what could happen at certain points is always described by alarmism as a blanket term (“we are all affected” “worldwide”).
Permanent condition of superlatives
What does the rest of the content on a website/Facebook page look like? Do we play with superlatives everywhere? If you play with constantly mentioning large numbers (“millions of…” “thousands”). Are exclamation marks used very often in the titles? Alarmism likes to shout, it literally screams its own content at the readership.
Structure of the general state of concern
Basic principle: everyone is affected! So do you too. So you have an obligation to carry this message. Alarmism works with exactly this suggestion and thus builds up an oversized image of a threat. The example above shows this generalization by simply placing the police report grammatically in the present and acting as an apparently permanent situation: “They come out of the forest, demand money and stab us”.
This grammatical representation seems like a constant, ongoing threat, even though this attack has not been observed on multiple occasions.
Don't misunderstand!
It's not about avoiding key points if you don't want to spread an alarmist message. It's about classifying the core message objectively and realistically. But unfortunately the alarmism leaves little room for discussion: the inflated drama creates a representation with high contrast. Yes or no, black or white. Challenging alarmism is often denounced as downplaying a problem and is associated with seemingly taking the opposite position. Even if at that moment, as a critic of alarmism, you can definitely understand the basic problem.
Nevertheless, persistent and excessive alarmism eventually wears off. If the world is constantly ending and every everyday phenomenon becomes a major threat, then at some point you no longer notice the real problems. A misbalance in the assessment of problems can lead to the priority becoming real
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )