Sramana Mitra has written a must-read column on Forbes.com, “Stop the Fear Epidemic.” I have talked a lot about the climate of fear in the U.S.--it is a vehicle for attracting readers, viewers, voters, policy-endorsers, rights-waivers, and customers. It influences how scholars do research as much as how policy-makers legislate. The media often gets targeted as the root of this phenomenon. Clearly media channels are the way information is distributed, but the media producers are not on one side of an impermeable wall with the “rest of us” on the other. Media producers are us. Media content reflects what we believe and what we believe will work. Sure, there are people persuading other people about stuff, but there is no us and them. It used to be that when one guy was worried, the only person that knew was the local bartender or his/her best friend. Now, through he miracle of modern technology, we all know. (How many of you got the email about jury duty … [Read more...]