“An absolutely excellent analysis” of the role of the media in the construction of fear. That’s how Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, describes David Altheide’s Creating Fear: News and the construction of crisis (Aldine de Gruyter, 2001). He says anyone interested in engaging with the issue of public fears and panics must read it.
Furedi has also been reading two “useful” books on the biotechnology revolution, Francis Fukuyama’s Our Posthuman Future (Profile, 2002) and Gregory Stock’s Redesigning Humans (Profile, 2002). Although drawn toward Stock’s analysis, he finds that Fukuyama raises the big questions in a powerful and compelling…
