MACMILLAN Media and the Dissemination of Fear: Pandemics, Wars and Political Intimidation (Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research - A Palgrave and IAMCR Series)

This book offers a diachronical and inter-/transmedia approach to the relationship of media and fear in a variety of geographical and cultural settings. This allows for an in-depth understanding of the media’s role in pandemics, wars and other crises, as well as in political intimidation. The book assembles chapters from a variety of authors, focusing on the relation between media and fear in the West, the Middle East, the Arab World and China. Besides its geographical and cultural diversity, the volume also takes a long-term perspective, bringing together cases from transforming media environments which span over a century. The book establishes a strong and historically persistent nexus between media and fear, which finds ever-new forms with new media but always follows similar logics. Review This is an outstanding book which will be of interest to media historians and communications scholars around the world. It reveals how fear is incubated, spread and, sometimes, countered through the media in ways that are profoundly illuminating and relevant in the era of Covid. James Curran, Professor of Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London This outstanding volume traces the impact of fear, uncertainty – and sometimes related – hope, historically, from World War I to the present and the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, media reporting is deconstructed in much systematic detail which allows understanding continuities and discontinuities of its complex role, locally, glocally, and globally. A must read for scholars and laypeople alike! Ruth Wodak, Emeritus Distinguished Professor, Lancaster University Tracing the relationship between threat, fear and the media across wide-ranging time spans, geographies and contexts, Media and the Dissemination of Fear explores its workings across natural disasters, wars, conflicts and health crises over the past 100 years. Although circumstances may have changed, the exploitation of fear as a means of social control and intimidation has not, and this book speaks to the myriad ways in which its damaging currents destabilize individuals and communities, force widespread compliance and entrench enmity and otherness, particularly in association with populist regimes. A thoughtful, important volume that wrestles mightily with the centrality of fear in contemporary life writ large. Barbie Zelizer, Raymond Williams Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania The collection edited by Ribeiro and Schwarzenegger clearly shows how a historical perspective on media and communications fears is timely and relevant. With the diachronic, intermedia and transcultural perspectives collected in this volume, editors and authors show the persistence and continuity of how media were and are used to disseminate, counter or simply feast on fear. For everyone interested in the longer history of what is nowadays discussed as affective publics, hate speech, populism and fake news this is a must readGabriele Balbi, Associate Professor in Media Studies, Università della Svizzera italiana From the Back Cover “This is an outstanding book which will be of interest to media historians and communications scholars around the world. It reveals how fear is incubated, spread and, sometimes, countered through the media in ways that are profoundly illuminating and relevant in the era of Covid.” ―James Curran, Professor of Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London “This outstanding volume traces the impact of fear, uncertainty – and sometimes related – hope, historically, from World War I to the present and the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, media reporting is deconstructed in much systematic detail which allows understanding continuities and discontinuities of its complex role, locally, glocally, and globally. A must read for scholars and laypeople alike!”  ―Ruth Wodak, Emeritus Distinguished Professor, Lancaster