Berlin-based artist Susanna Hertrich designed this graph as part of an interactive installation meant to question the difference between the likelihood of real harm and hysterical public outrage.
Sociological Images has an in-depth discussion of Hertrich’s rubric for delineating between real causes for worry and false threats. Her approximation is largely accurate (bird, or swine, flu makes for a gruesome health scandal and gun violence is usually overblown with media coverage of several isolated cases), but I’m not sure that fretting about a reduced stock portfolio has been a case of exaggerated concern since Fall 2008.
Below, images from Hertrich’s original installation. For more information on the artist, visit her website.
Found on Chart Porn.