RISK AND FEAR COMMUNICATION IN THE CORONA PANDEMIC: MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATION AND ITS PERSUASIVE FUNCTION The subject of this article is the fear-related communicati

Abstract

The subject of this article is the fear-related communication in German journalistic media indexed by the COVID pandemic since 2020. Fear communication is considered in the article as a resonance amplifier that can be processed by all functional
systems of society, but can only be processed by an individual as an emotion in consciousness. The article does not examine the evocation of fear in an individual, but seeks to grasp theoretically how fear is communicated. The symbolically generalized
medium of journalistic media and the coding of communication related to it play a special role. Fear-related communication is based on information selection and the constant differentiation between information and non-information in the journalistic
media. It is used purposefully to form opinions and to help legitimize political decisions. Findings on linguistic strategies of fear-related communication are elaborated and substantiated with examples. The strategies include the use of neologisms in certain meanings, degradations of meaning, the choice of photos in text-image interaction as well as metaphors