I’m not sure how many people heard about this, but May 20th was the first time I heard about the “end of the world” and not only was the world going to end, but it was going to end at 6:00pm. Some people actually believed Harold Camping when he began to spread the word that Judgement day was coming. Harold Camping told his followers that they should either donate or prepare for “Judgment Day.” A lot of people took money out of their savings, retirement funds, and other resources in order to donate. Robert Fitzpatrick spent $140,000 on billboards advertising May 21st as the Day the world was going to end. After the fact, Camping issued a statement saying that because of the True believers “prayers,” God listened and decided to not “end the world.” I find this humorous, however, this even brings up the question of the way we use and interact with media. Some use media for very significant and positive life changing purposes and some scare the hell out of you with it. I can only imagine how some people who actually believed the world was going to end felt up until the 6:00 hour. The amount of fear had to have been unbelievable. Also, not to mention, the amount of money many people spent out of fear. This is similar to the radio scandal of 1938 when Orson Welles played War of the Worlds and many believed that the world was going to end. We have to think about the way in which we use the media to send messages because to the media illiterate person, the media can be extremely dangerous.
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