Public Anxiety Toward Television Report on Airplane Accidents

Abstract

While not all air travel experiences are pleasant, the question of how to cope with and ease people’s fear of flying has long been an interesting topic for research. This study investigates the impact of media on public anxiety and physiological reactions toward air travel. In addition, it aims to examine the dimensionality of the public’s fear of taking an air flight and the media usage characteristics of fearful fliers. A quasiexperiment with a treatment group and a control group is designed to evaluate the study propositions. A total of 260 samples are collected using a structured questionnaire after the participants view three-minute-long, airline-related video clips. Principal component analysis and cluster analysis are used to analyze the data. This study finds that a negative media report could lead to an increase in the public’s anxiety toward air travel. These specific air travel anxieties are grouped with the corresponding symptoms among participants who viewed the accident-related video reports. Implications and further research are discussed.

Citation

Wang, W. and Cole, S. (2013), "Public Anxiety Toward Television Report on Airplane Accidents", Advances in Hospitality and Leisure (Advances in Hospitality and Leisure, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 207-224. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1745-3542(2013)0000009014