(Chunk 3) Americans are Blinded!!!

With the constant use of many facts, experts’ opinions, and anecdotes, Barry Glassner in The Culture of Fear continues to argue that Americans fear the wrong things due to the failure of the media to convey the real problematic issues. Americans fear African-Americans because the media tends to be prejudice and only portray the crimes done by minorities. The fear has been instilled in to Americans through the continuous portrayal of negative things done by minorities through media. The media fails to depict all the positive things done by minorities. The media also tends to blame rappers and illegal drugs for most crimes and deaths. But the media fails to recognize that other types of music have lyrics that are more violent than the words used in rap songs and that the overuse of legal drugs have led to more death than illegal drugs. The use of illegal drugs has actually declined in the past years but media still portrays the use of illegal drugs as a big issue. The real problematic issue is the overuse of prescription drugs which has led to many deaths. Abuse of prescription drugs “sends adolescents to emergency rooms more often than cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and LSD combined (pg 146).” Barry Glassner demonstrates how the American public is blinded by the media and that they are unable to understand what the real problematic issues are by addressing problems of racism, prejudice by the media, and drug abuse.

Questions
1. Why does the media waste so much time and energy to find stories that they exaggerate and avoid the real problematic issues that are present everywhere around them?
2. Do politicians play a big role in what we see in the media? Do they have control over what the American public sees?

(Chunk 2) Media: The Massive Manipulator

In chapters three and four of the nonfiction book, The Culture of Fear (1999), Barry Glassner argues that Americans fear the wrong things such as violent youth and "monster moms" due to media and unreliable experts that stretch the truth and hide the reality. The media has become a major manipulator that turns small issues to major fears to avoid the real problematic issues. Glassner supports his claims by stating the false facts and statistics provided by the media and experts and then countering them with real, believable facts and statistics that falsifies the claims of the media and makes the experts lose their credibility. The author points out that the real issue is gun violence not teen suicide or homicide. “More kids succeed in suicide attempts these days than in the past because more of them-about 60 percent-use guns. The ready availability of guns also accounts for most teen homicides and many fatal accidents, the other two leading causes of death for this age group." Glassner then presents incidents in which Americans start fearing mothers who murder their kids and spouse. The American public fails to realize the real problem which is why the mothers acted in such violence. The causes of the mothers’ monstrous acts of violence were all the brutal violence and the abuse they faced during their lifetime. People also fail to realize that “the most brutal, terrorizing and continuing pattern of harmful intimate violence is carried out primarily by men.” Even though everything that the media puts forth has been proven false over and over again, the American public still relies on the media for updates and continues to fear the wrong things. “Fear mongers do not have to stop performing their hocus-pocus just because their secrets have been revealed.” His purpose is to show how people fear the wrong things in order to convince the audience to focus on the things that are really problematic. Glassner emphasizes the fact that the American people should concentrate on the things that really matter instead of being afraid of small things that the media manipulates.

Discussion Questions
1. Why are Americans still afraid of things that the media falsely manipulates even though it has been proven false multiple times?

2. What can America do to bring out the reality and tell the public the real problematic issues and how can these issues be solved?