Creating Reality : How TV News Distorts Events

DAVID L. ALTHEIDE is Emeritus Regents’ Professor on the faculty of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University, where he taught for 37 years since receiving his PhD from the University of California, San Diego. His work has focused on the role of mass media and information technology in social control. His most recent book is Terror Post 9/11 and the Media (Lang, 2009). Dr. Altheide received the Cooley Award three times, given to the outstanding book in symbolic interaction, from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction: In 2007 for Terrorism and the Politics of Fear (2006); in 2004 for Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis (2002); and in 1986 for Media Power (1985). Dr. Altheide received the 2005 George Herbert Mead Award for lifetime contributions from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and the society’s Mentor Achievement Award in 2007. Altheide is married (Carla) and has two children (Tasha and Tod), and four grandchildren.