 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Barry Glassner, PhD, University of Southern California, Department of Sociology, Los Angeles, CA 90089, 213-740-8846, glassne@usc.edu
Immense power and money await individuals and organizations that tap into Americans’ moral insecurities. By means of fearmongering about crime and other scares, politicians sell themselves to voters, TV news magazines sell their programs to viewers, advocacy groups sell memberships, lawyers sell class action lawsuits, realtors sell homes in gated communities, and on and on. This paper explores three of the techniques that fearmongers use: misdirection; the christening of isolated incidents as trends; and pseudo-experts who supercede true experts. The paper will argue that as a result of successful fearmongering, Americans waste billions of dollars and person-hours each year on largely mythical hazards-- on prison cells occupied by people who posed little or no danger to others, for example, and on programs designed to protect young people from hazards that few of them actually face.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Violence, Jails and Prisons
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.