Media Scare- End of The World

One in 10 people were anxious that 21 December marked the end of the world. This panic had stemmed from the Ancient Mayans predictions of doomsday within their calendar. Thanks to the press and Hollywood this predicted doomsday had become one of the most widely-disseminated tale in human history. According to the naive and the impressionable recent hurricanes, unrest in the Middle East, solar flares, mystery planets about to collide with us and the inevitable invasion of green slimey men - are all "proof" of what the ancient Mayans knew would come to pass on the 21st. However ridiculous this may seem the panic spread worldwide, causing nitwits everywhere to run out and buy £32,000 one person bunkers which are both asteroid proof and somehow impregnable to nuclear war. 

The only place in the world which was claimed to survive this forthcoming blood bath and reenactment of Armageddon was the small french village of Bugarach. However it seems the only fortune brought to this area was the large tourism boom with fanatics flocking to the mountains in the hope they will be transported up by aliens and saved. Sky news has been looking in to the origins of the Mayan predictions; Professor Mark Van Stone, the author of 2012: Science And Prophecy Of The Ancient Maya, traces the start of the 2012 apocalypse prophecy back to 1904, when German scholars said a Mayan picture of a sky dragon pouring water from above proved they were predicting a great flood. Other predictions then made it into subsequent academic books on the Maya and soon became enshrined in popular mythology. 


NASA had been receiving many thousands of worried call and had to post upon their website: Some advocates for the 2012 catastrophe say that what will actually cause the devastation  is an alignment of planets. There is no planet alignment on the winter solstice 2012. Nonetheless, advocates of doom connect the fictional alignment to astrological predictions or groundless claims about a reversal of Earth's magnetic field and unprecedented solar storms. Many internet postings and guests on all-night apocalyptic radio have elaborated on these themes but there is yet to be any real proof. 

This story quickly became a moral panic due to the 'evidence' provided and the sheer excitement of peoples imaginations. The media is the real blame here, increasing awareness and panic in those who passively consume and believe any information they are given. Hollywood has for years also been making good use of this story, with films such as Take Shelter, 28 Days Later, Last day on earth, The End, The day the earth stood still and of course the movie 2012 itself. In this way Hollywood has brought us up to believe the end is nigh, we've been consuming and accepting the idea for years. The reality of the situation is that of course the end is inevitable but as is everything in that sense. The bottom line of this media scare is that there was no real and legitimate reason for concern.