Reporting Panics
Module code: MS3024
Today ideas of panics, risks and fears - whether, for example, those associated with crime, immigration, environmental despoliation, the nuclear industry, food processing and food safety or scientific advances in bio-genetic engineering - are subject to intense media attention and speculation. But how exactly has journalism represented these? Do journalists simply sensationalise and profit from 'doom and gloom' mongering or perhaps they play a more responsible role in alerting us to associated hazards? Reporting Panics, Risks and Fears invites you to consider the multiple roles performed by the news media in relation to the communication of hazards in today's so-called 'Risk society'.
Topics covered:
- Introducing ideas of risk, anxiety and the news media
- Risk advocates
- Journalists, experts and risky news
- Reporting risky bodies
- Children at risk?
- Media tales of drugs and crime
- A news view of immigration
- The news media, food scares and anxiety
- The reporting of the new science of genetics and biotechnology
- Media audiences and the reception of risk