Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis

by David L. Altheide

Overview

The creative use of fear by news media and social control organizations has produced a "discurse of fear" - the awareness and expection that danger and risk are lurking everywhere. Case studies illustrates how certain organizations and social institutions benefit from the explotation of such fear construction. One social impact is a manipulated public empathy: We now have more "victims" than at any time in our prior history. Another, more troubling resutl is the role we have ceded to law enforcement and punishment: we turn ever more readily to the state and formal control to protect us from what we fear. This book attempts through the marshalling of significant data to interrupt that vicious cycle of fear discourse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138521438
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/21/2017
Series:	Social Problems & Social Issues
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David L. Altheide

Table of Contents

1: Give the Devil His Due: Fear in Its Place; 2: Tracking Discourse; 3: The Problem Frame and the Production of Fear; 4: The Discourse of Fear; 5: Journalistic Interviewing; 6: Policing Crime and Fear in the News Media; 7: Children and the Discourse of Fear; 8: The Lens of Fear

Editorial Reviews

A prolific media scholar, Altheide (Arizona State Univ.) combines sociology with media studies to address why and how (and the degree to which) news media are making people more fearful of their surroundings and life in general… As the author sums it up, "The major point of this book is that fear has become more pervasive in our lives." Using some fascinating charts and diagrams to supplement his discussion, Altheide makes clear how and why this is true. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals.” —C. Sterling,Choice

From the Publisher