Throughout the world, the mass media are responsible for shaping the form and content of experiences. In this book, David L. Altheide examines how the mass media, including news and popular culture, have cast terrorism, propaganda and social control post 9/11. Altheide shows how fear works with terrorism to alter discourse, social meanings, and our sense of being in the world. Emphasis is placed on the different institutional interventions and how these particular stories become framed and inform the wider media narratives of terror. The author argues that post 9/11 we are witnessing the emergence of new communication formats that not only constitute counter-narratives, but also shape future communicative experience. The text is suitable for scholars and students interested in the ongoing relationship between the media and terror post 9/11.

Autorentext

The Author: David L. Altheide is Regents' Professor in the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University, where has taught for 35 years. A sociologist, who uses qualitative methods, his work has focused on the role of mass media and information technology for social control. Three of his books received the Cooley Award as the best book of the year in the tradition of symbolic interaction, from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis (2002) was honored in 2004, and Terrorism and the Politics of Fear (2006), honored in 2007, examines the role of the mass media and propaganda in promoting fear and social control. Dr. Altheide received the 2005 George Herbert Mead Award for lifetime contributions from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and was selected as the Distinguished Mentor by this society in 2007.

Zusammenfassung
«This important new book by pioneering media sociologist David Altheide continues his highly original and courageous work on media logic and the contemporary communications environment, showing how they have expanded the idea of 'terror' in many directions, and fuelled a deadly politics, most recently in Gaza. Very strongly recommended.» (Aaron Doyle, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa)
«David Altheide applies his expertise in media and communications to study the role of terror in the post-9/11 world. Altheide argues that media logic has normalized terror and promoted a politics of fear that enable politicians to exploit fear of terrorism. At the same time, terrorism and fear of terror comes to penetrate and structure the media and our view of the world. This is a timely study that should be of interest to all concerned with contemporary media and politics.» (Douglas Kellner, Professor at UCLA and author of 'Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombings to the Virginia Tech Massacre')