From Lujo with Love

Often, risk communicators have to negotiate an awareness of legitimized, and illegitimate, public panic. That is, the difference between what causes public panic and what actually leads to injury or death, which is not always congruent. For example, a study found that people were more likely to die from a sand-sinkhole at the beach than from a shark attack (Maron & Haas, 2007). According to Burgess (2014), the curator for the international shark attack file within the Florida Program for Shark Research sponsored by the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, in 2013, only 2.1% of the shark attacks in the United States were fatal, as compared to a 36% fatality rate elsewhere in the world. However, every year the Discovery Channel sets out to reinvigorate public panic by using tales of shark attacks during its annual “Shark Week.” As a result, risk communicators must navigate the treacherous waters of worry in order to mitigate panic and disseminate information.