{"id":787,"date":"2009-05-19T07:13:14","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T13:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/crawler\/?p=787"},"modified":"2009-05-19T07:24:23","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T13:24:23","slug":"sociological-commentary-on-the-swine-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2009\/05\/19\/sociological-commentary-on-the-swine-flu\/","title":{"rendered":"sociological commentary on the swine flu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg has been called upon by several media outlets seeking to understand the panic surrounding the swine flu epidemic including On the Media (NPR)<\/a> and World Focus. <\/a><\/p>\n

In a piece entitled ‘Stop, Drop and Roll,’ On the Media asked Klinenberg to explain the situation. They write, “While some news outlets have been trying to put the H1N1 flu virus in perspective<\/a>, others just can’t resist a good panic story. They’ve been contacting New York University Sociology Professor Eric Klinenberg<\/a> asking him to talk about the widespread panic in reaction to the flu. Only problem, there is no widespread panic. Klinenberg explains.”<\/p>\n

Well, the problem is, if there\u2019s one finding that\u2019s consistent in the sociology of disasters over the last, say, five decades, it\u2019s when there are crises, people don’t panic. And yet no matter how hard we try to make this point, we always get emails and phone calls along these lines.<\/p>\n

So I immediately responded in an email and said, look, I’d be more than happy to speak with you, but here\u2019s the thing. It turns out that sociology of disaster mostly tells us that people don’t panic, in general.<\/p>\n

And furthermore, if we look specifically at what\u2019s happening here in New York City, I don’t see any signs of panic. I walk to work and haven’t seen a single person wearing a mask at this point, no violence, no screaming, no people keeping their kids home from school en masse.<\/p>\n

And I said, look, even, at Mexico City. I’m seeing images of people who are being cautious, far more people wearing masks, but the scenes from the streets that we’ve seen in the news, at least, don’t suggest that there\u2019s panic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

World Focus<\/a> featured a video interview with Klinenberg…
\n<\/object>
\nRead more from NPR.<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more from World Focus. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg has been called upon by several media outlets seeking to understand the panic surrounding the swine flu epidemic including On the Media (NPR) and World Focus. In a piece entitled ‘Stop, Drop and Roll,’ On the Media asked Klinenberg to explain the situation. They write, “While some news outlets have been trying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39074],"tags":[39112,39113],"class_list":["post-787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sightings","tag-culture","tag-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}