Do you also suffer from Cruel World Syndrome?
On October 30, 1938 , the filmmaker Orson Welles He interrupted a dance program on the radio to announce that different spacecraft were heading from Mars to Grover's Mill, in the state of New Jersey. As a result, many of the 12 million listeners were victims of the consequent absolute panic (on the eve of Halloween, to add insult to injury), causing a collapse in stores, streets and highways never before seen in the history of the United States.
However, it all turned out to be a lie . Even Welles himself was forced to apologize in public despite announcing before the broadcast the fictional character of the same , a fact that went unnoticed by listeners who tuned into the program later.
But this is not the only example of as an artistic or communication medium can condition a person's state of alertness.
Already in the 20s , the introduction of sound in the cinema would make it possible to tell more complex stories with shots, screams and explosions and, in this way, gradually feed the global paranoia around a Vietnam as threatening as that of apocalypse now or one California beach full of sharks.
A pattern that only increased in the following decades, especially thanks to newscasts (mostly negative news sources) or even streaming series. In fact, a study published in 2018 through the **Psychology of Popular Media Culture magazine** analyzed the five most watched series of the moment and their impact on 366 students.
The result was a perception of danger in the world born from the main content currently consumed on online platforms.
“When a brain receives negative information about a place, it gives higher priority to this than to positive information. This occurs because our security system reacts more to potentially dangerous stimuli ”, affirms to Traveler.es the psychologist ** Ana Lucas Prieto .**
The perception of danger regarding the world grows with the consumption of 'fake news'
For years, television has had the ability to focus on different (and negative) angles of reality, leaving aside other more positive ones. A phenomenon that not only tends to give a partially distorted image of reality, but activate the alarm in people with respect to the world and, in the case that concerns us here, their predisposition to travel.
A contemporary evil known as “ cultivation theory ” from which the call "Cruel World Syndrome" , term coined by the communicator of Hungarian origin George Gerbner in the 1970s after numerous studies on the impact of American television on the public.
TRAVEL THROUGH A NOT SO CRUEL WORLD
“The confrontation between a police officer and a cartel leaves 14 dead in Mexico”, “India under protests for gang rape”, or “Maldives will sink in 2010”. These are some of the headlines that we often see in the newspapers, television programs or news on google, completely conditioning our perception of the world from the first minute.
News that stimulates the Pepillo Cricket that we carry inside throwing phrases like "Don't go to India because there is a lot of misery and disease there", "Honduras is a very dangerous country" or "In Sri Lanka there was an attack eight months ago".
However, if we dig something else, We will also verify that a country may not be so dangerous if we go to the information and the common sense as main allies.
Sri Lanka has had to reinvent itself after the attacks suffered in April 2019
“It is important to have a verified information in order to anticipate what the person will find at the destination. When we plan a trip we usually read about the wonderful places we are going to visit, but we must also know the customs of a country , if you have to take any special care and, of course, the sites that are not recommended. Thus our source of information will not be only television, but also Internet and social networks, specialized guides or travel agencies ”, concludes Anna.
REINVENTING THE IMAGE OF A COUNTRY
For years, especially the 1990s, countries like Colombia were viewed with disfavour by those travelers who conceived of the South American nation as synonymous with insecurity and drugs.
This was the reason that prompted Turismo de Colombia in 2008 to reinvent this belief and project a positive external image through the slogan "The risk is that you want to stay", a strategy that sought to replace "I don't want to go to Colombia" with a “ I don't want to leave Colombia ” through the testimony of nine travelers who, in effect, they stayed to live among coffee plantations and palm trees.
Colombia was synonymous with insecurity and drugs
The result was a number of tourists in Colombia of 557,280 in the year 2000 which amounted to 2.38 million in 2010 and, in turn, 4.2 million in 2018, a year considered the highest number of visitors received by the country of Gabriel Garcia Marquez of his entire history.
Years later, the current image of Colombia continues to feed on prejudices about some of its social problems, but the beauty of Cartagena de Indias, I the experiences in the Cocora Valley or the kindness of its people prevail both in social networks and forums and, especially, word-of-mouth that spreads around any traveling circle. The perfect example of tourism marketing as a way to reverse the image of a fate condemned by the media and popular culture.
A task that is also necessary, perhaps more urgently, in those countries that at some point suffered the consequences of a terrorist attack. The most recent case, detonation of eight bombs in different luxury hotels and churches in Sri Lanka on the morning of Easter Sunday 2019.
An event that resulted in hundreds of deaths and the consequent drop of 90% in visitors during the month following the tragedy compared to the historical maximum of 2.33 million tourists reached in 2018.
Sri Lanka or the example of the 'cruel world syndrome'
Throughout the weeks following the catastrophe, the Sri Lankan government made every possible effort to solve one of the main asian island economic sources without the world being aware of the fact that a country touched by terrorism would bet, even more, on a greater security.
“Whoever travels to Sri Lanka until April 2020 will have made a trip to the 60% of regular price , there will be almost no sense of overcrowding anywhere and, without a doubt, it will have been done with the greatest security guarantees”, confirms Pablo Pascual, director of the luxury travel agency Sociedad Geográfica de las Indias, specializing in Sri Lanka, India, Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal . “Today Sri Lanka is a safer country, although none of us are outside the target of terrorists. In addition, our experience shows us that, once a tragic event of this nature occurs, it does not last in the collective memory for more than a year.”
The indicator of such a slow awakening is confirmed by the figures of more than 37,802 tourists in May, which rose to 176,984 last November, 9.7% less than the same period of the previous year but enough signal to confirm that delving into the benefits of a country can become the best strategy when it comes to balancing our traveling yin-yang.
Or perhaps, also choosing to watch movies like Smiles and tears instead of The Sniper next weekend.