Issue (WIWE) status: Submitted, Unpublished

Weak Signal's progress: Advanced

This Weak Signal came from: 
Interviews

The source of this Weak Signal: 
Bruce Lloyd, "London South Bank University", interviewed by "RTC North"

Weak Signal's description: 

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was once recognised as being completely independent, but now it is also prone to sensationalise events, and cannot be considered as a reliable source of information. Indeed, traditional media sources of reliable information are often suspect and this usually due to over-sensationalising events. As such society can easily become immune to certain aspects of news, rather like a ‘crying wolf scenario’. For example, the recent SARS scare: Do we really know how serious they were? We know what was reported in the media and then this is perceived in certain ways by society. What will happen if a real epidemic occurs? If you look at the recent Mexican Gulf oil spillage, this is a very traumatic event, but in the past when these problems have occurred they have generally been dealt with limited fuss. Today, 98%, probably 99.9%, of the population have limited knowledge of real events and rely on media coverage, and this determines their perception and interpretation of an event.