Comparison Of Whispers On The Borderline By Fine And Ellis

In their chapter “Whispers on the Borderline,” Gary Alan Fine and Bill Ellis recapitulate the reasons why rumors of terrorism, immigration, and trade continue to matter and persist in society as nations continue to globalize. They do this by revisiting the reasons why different rumors arise in the first place and what motivates individuals to take them as plausible events and continue to spread them to others. The authors attribute the proliferation of certain rumors to matters of trust and fears of the “others.” The rumors they explored in their work fall into these two common themes. Fine and Ellis also provide manners in which rumors that are prejudiced, stereotypical, and negative can be combated and can be stopped from spreading among

They begin with the persistence of 9/11 rumors, which are characterized by the mixture of raw emotions as they emerged during a time of disaster. Most, however, arose out of immense fear, fear of what was to come, and fear of these foreign “others” who were seen to be invading “home.” The authors write that these forms of rumors create divisions in society, as they pit one group - usually a single ethnic group - against the innocent masses who have become victims. As Fine and Ellis (2010) write these rumors stem into concepts of fear but there are rumors of hope, but as they argue, “rumors of hope are less common” (p. 203). The authors argue that a “rumor is a means of understanding what many see as a new, potentially risky, and poorly understood social reality” (Fine and Ellis, 2010, p. 204). Many rumors, however, stem from ignorance, prejudice and racism, especially those that emerge in times of crisis, as many of the racially fueled 9/11 rumors did. They create scapegoats, but Fine and Ellis (2010) argue that they create a means of making sense of a confusing, sudden event. They argue that this manifestation of rumors is usually what can be considered a premature stage in its development as it will still merge and evolve as it comes into contact with other rumors that are trying to make sense of the same situation. It must, however, be taken into account that many of these rumors never meet the appropriate rumors to dissolve the racist and ignorant undertones. Ellis and Fine (2010) write that rumors tend to reveal what features are important in society, but they are often pulled in every direction due to varying religious and ethnic systems that create subcultures that rarely mingle. When this fact is taken together with Fine and Ellis’s previous comment