How misrepresentation of sharks in the media has led to their mistreatment and negative perception

  Galeophobia is the term used for a phobia of sharks. With the size of many species being much larger than us humans as well as their razor sharp teeth, it's inevitable that sharks can pose danger. Although the chances of you experiencing and losing your life in a shark attack are slim, it is still a possibility.  Sharks have become increasingly sensationalised in the media, which has also been fuelled by blockbuster films such as Jaws and The Shallows depicting our worst fears of how a shark encounter could potentially end up. This negative perception of sharks has unfortunately led to their mistreatment as people have become more compliant to extreme measures of 'controlling' this fascinating species of fish. But is this possibly changing? Are people becoming more educated on the real nature of sharks? Are sharks really as fearful as the media portrays them?

Jaws (1975) Briana Le Busque analysed 109 shark films released between 1958 and 2019. 96% of these films overtly portrayed sharks as potentially threatening to humans. This means that the films showed scary sharks that were biting/killing people or featured people fearing sharks. After examining the posters for these shark films, nearly 75% of them featured the shark's teeth. The impact of these films can particularly be seen after the release of Jaws in 1975. Director and founder of Shark Stewards, David McGuire, remembers surfers fleeing the ocean at the sight of a leopard shark, a harmless species of shark with no previous history of dangerous encounters with humans. The long term consequences of this can be summarised in three points using the 'Jaws effect': the belief that sharks intentionally bite humans, encounters with sharks are always fatal and sharks should be killed to prevent future attacks from occurring. Similar portrayals of sharks can also be found on news

This stigma that sharks are violent man-eating monsters makes them seem more terrifying to many people. I was interested to see how many people were actually scared of sharks. So I gathered ten volunteers from my social media page and asked them if they were afraid of sharks to see if this fearmongering has actually affected people. My hypothesis was that more people would be scared of sharks than those who are not scared of sharks. 70% found sharks or the idea of encountering a shark in the water scary therefore proving my hypothesis correct. Shark netting  Over the last five years, the population of sharks has decreased by 71% and over 30% of all shark and ray species (a close evolutionary relative) are considered threatened. This dramatization of has led to and increase in shark culling and other 'control measures' like shark netting. Shark nets have been present in Queensland since 1962 to prevent sharks from coming into inshore waters. Unfortunately due to overfishing, the