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Culture of fear is a term used by some among public discourse to accuse public figures of inciting fear to achieve a political end, in an attempt to alarm the audience into acceding to this accusation.

Controversy and criticism

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the use of the term War on Terror was intended to generate a culture of fear deliberately because it "obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue".


Frank Furedi, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent and writer for Spiked magazine, discusses this term in his books, Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectations (1997) and Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right (2005). Furedi's account locates the source of the phenomenon in what he characterises a 'failure of historical imagination', a symptom of what he identifies as the exhaustion of 20th century systems of political meaning.


Jennie Bristow, a writer for Spiked magazine, argues that the culture of fear that emerged following the September 11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax attacks were not so much emergent fears but rather top-down manufactured ones by politicians and reflected by the media. She also believes that the fears engendered, although irrational, allowed patriotism to emerge which eventually led to military adventurism in places not connected to either 9/11 or the anthrax attacks.

Books

• Culture of Fear: Risk taking and the morality of low expectation, Frank Furedi, ISBN 0-8264-7616-3
• The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, Barry Glassner ISBN 0465003362
• Manufacturing Consent: The political economy of the mass media, Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky ISBN 0-09-953311-1
• Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right, Frank Furedi, ISBN 0-8264-8728-9
• State of Fear, Michael Crichton, ISBN 0-06-621413-0
• Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right and the Moral Panic over the City, Steve Macek,ISBN 0-8166-4361-X
• Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century., Hunter S. Thompson, (Simon & Schuster; 1st Simon edition, November 1, 2003, ISBN 0-684-87324-9)
• You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear Frances Moore Lappe and Jeffrey Perkins, ISBN 978-1585424245
• Creating Fear: News and the Construction of a Crisis, David L. Altheide, (Aldine de Gruyter, 2002, 223pp. ISBN 978-0-202-30660-3)

See also

• Conspiracy of silence (expression)
• Conspiracy theory
• Criticism of the War on Terrorism
• Crowd psychology
• Information warfare
• Climate change alarmism
• Mass hysteria
• Mean world syndrome
• Media hype
• Moral panic
• Propaganda
• Yellow journalism

External links

• The culture of fear, by Barry Glassner - Introduction - "Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things"
• The Culture of Fear by Noam Chomsky
• Beyond a Culture of Fear, by K. Lauren de Boer - article published in the EarthLight magazine, #47, fall/winter 2002/2003
• You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear by Frances Moore Lappé and Jeffrey Perkins
• Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis by David Altheide
• The Political Implications of a Discourse of Fear: The Mass Mediated Discourse of Fear in the Aftermath of 9/11 by Stefanie Grupp Clasby

References

1. Post Store. "Terrorized by 'War on Terror' by Brzezinski". Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2010-11-23.
2. Frank Furedi. "Epidemic of fear". Spiked-online.com. Retrieved 2010-11-23.
3. Jennie Bristow (2002-10-12). "How did we get from 9/11 to here?". Spiked-online.com. Retrieved 2010-11-23.

• Social psychology
• Cultural studies
• Media issues
• Media manipulation techniques
• Terrorism tactics
• Fear