Selling Fear
Subtitle: Counterterrorism, the Media, and Public Opinion
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2011
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780226567181
Subjects: War on terrorism, 2001-2009; National security, united states; United states, foreign relations, 21st century
Description: While we have long known that the strategies of terrorism rely heavily on media coverage of attacks, this is a look at the role played by media in counterterrorism, and the ways that, in the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration manipulated coverage to maintain a climate of fear. Drawing on in-depth analysis of counterterrorism in the years after 9/11, including the issuance of terror alerts and the decision to invade Iraq, the authors present a compelling case that the Bush administration hyped fear, while obscuring civil liberties abuses and concrete issues of preparedness. The media, meanwhile, largely abdicated its watchdog role, choosing to amplify the administration's message while downplaying issues that might have called the administration's statements and strategies into question. The book extends through Hurricane Katrina, and the more skeptical coverage that followed, then the first year of the Obama administration, when an increasingly partisan political environment presented the media, and the public, with new problems of reporting and interpretation. This book is an analysis of the intertwined failures of government and media and their costs to our nation.