The Guardian view on the media after #Paris: from fear to loathing, by way of made-up facts | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/24/the-guardian-view-on-the-media-after-paris-from-fear-to-loathing-by-way
The discrepancy between what people think they know and what is actually the case often explains why they are so unsettled. Anti-immigration sentiment across Europe begins to make more sense when you realise that Brits and Spaniards think they have twice as many immigrants in their country as they actually do, the Italians, Belgians and French assume there are three times as many as there are, the Hungarians eight times and the Poles more than 30 times.
Animosity towards welfare spending holds a certain logic once you learn that Britons think £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently, when the official estimate is 70p. Generally speaking we think we are a far more violent, licentious, devious nation that is far more generous to foreigners, both home and abroad, than we actually are.
These misconceptions don’t come from nowhere. The media, of course, has a particular responsibility. By pushing the agendas that target “welfare scroungers” and “bogus asylum seekers”, some outlets have created perceptions of a world that does not exist, incited fears that are not substantiated and sown divisions that are neither necessary nor helpful.
But while parts of the media may feed on xenophobia, Islamophobia and general anomie, they did not invent them. These falsehoods are rooted in popular anxieties and underpinned by widespread prejudices that find a home in our political culture, where scapegoating provides a cheap and inadequate salve for what actually ails us. They frame debates, drive misinformed policy and provide the carrion on which populist #parasites feed.
