The Imagery and Analogies of Swine Flu

Currently there is much to be said about Swine Flu and its status as a threat to the public health.  Some individuals consider it as the next epidemic, something that may seriously injure or kill many people.  Others consider it as media scare tactic, which is no more dangerous than the other varieties of the flu.  Rather than discuss the merit of either of these claims, I would like to look to the imagery and the historical analogies, which each of these positions invoke.

            The physical appearance of the Swine Flu is something will not create fear in the viewer.  If we compare the image of Swine Flu under a microscope to the fangs of an angry Tiger, we feel something different.  In the latter we feel anxiety and fear naturally, while the former is either disgusting or completely without affect.  Thus, the image of Swine Flu is ineffective as a media tool.  Instead, the media turns to the individuals that suffer from the Swine Flu as a referent, rather than the actual source of the pain.  This concept is very similar to the manner that Elaine Scarry conceptualizes discussions of pain.  She believes that pain cannot be directly referenced, and that it must be discussed indirectly: “the pain feels like ____”.  Though I propose a similar viewpoint with reference to fear, I tend to consider the problem as something natural within the human.  The human does not fear the image of Swine Flu because their natural instincts do not consider such a form as dangerous.  Instead, the media must play on the empathy of the individual to evoke an actual fear.

            Beyond the images that are used, we may consider the role of the historical analogy.  The individuals that claim epidemic look to the flu as a repeat of 1918 (?), where many people died from a Swine Flu.  The individuals that oppose this claim look to the Bird Flu scare of a few years ago, where there was a great build up of fear with little substantiation.  The initial argument benefits from naming convention, as each are “Swine Flu”, while the latter argument is based on the temporal proximity of each.  Both of the arguments however are related to the context and the opinion of the media/viewer irrespective of the actual facts about the Swine Flu.