Do epidemic films teach us about distrust?
Against a top-down Foucault-style story that elites always use epidemics as tools of control, the paper reads cinema as evidence that afflicted communities often distrust official action — and that films themselves shape trust.
Source
Suspicious minds: cinematic depiction of distrust during epidemic disease outbreaks
Study at a glance
- Design
- Qualitative / archival — Film survey plus historical epidemic literature on community distrust of official control
- N
- Cinema/cultural analysis across epidemic films; not a sample N
- Population
- Cinematic depictions of epidemic distrust from contagion to asylum-oppression films
- Outcome
- Afflicted communities’ distrust of official action and films’ role in shaping trust
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
What they did
It cites 19th-century India (Arnold) on epidemic regulations, then surveys films from contagion to bioterrorism and even Cuckoo’s Nest as asylum-oppression cinema, arguing films influence trust because they supply information about disease.
What they found
Communities in outbreaks are not always convinced of prescribed action. Authorities have used outbreaks as tools for oppressive regulations. Films also influence people’s trust.
The limits
What it doesn't show
This is film-and-epidemic cultural history, not epidemiology. Cuckoo’s Nest is analogical (asylum), not a plague movie.
Key terms
- Epidemic as tool
- The claim that elites use outbreaks to impose oppressive regulations — the paper’s starting foil.
- Distrust
- Afflicted communities not convinced of official courses of action.
- Cinematic influence
- Films shape trust by how they present epidemic information.
- Arnold / India
- Classic 19th-century India epidemic historiography used as a historical example.
Flashcards
Research intelligence for this paper
See its role on concept claims, tensions it is part of, placement history, and related discoveries.
Quiz yourself
Top-down foil is that elites use epidemics as?
Common questions
Top-down story?
Authorities throughout history used outbreaks as tools of oppressive regulation.
The paper’s emphasis?
Communities often distrust that official course.
Why film?
Films can influence trust by the information they give about disease.
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