Invisible crises

de George Gerbner, Hamid Mowlana

Hidden from public sight and mind today are invisible crises that threaten our democracy and existence even more than the crises we know about - or think we know about. These invisible crises include the promotion of practices that drug, hurt, poison, and kill thousands every day; cults of violence that desensitize, terrorize, and brutalize; the growing siege mentality of our cities; widening resource gaps and the most glaring inequalities in the industrial world; the costly neglect of vital institutions such as public education and the arts; and media-assisted make-believe image politics corrupting the electorial process. The contributors to this volume - exploring such unattended crises, analyzing why they are hidden, and focusing on the increasing concentration of culture-power that keeps them from view - maintain that a profound general crisis of social vision, public communication, and representative government underlies all of the invisible crises.