Through the Lens of the Media: Media Logic, Fear, AI

David L. Altheide, PhD, is Regents’ Professor Emeritus on the faculty of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University, where he taught for 37 years of his 43-year teaching career. His BA is from Central Washington State College—now Central Washington University (1967), MA from the University of Washington (1969), and PhD from the University of California, San Diego (1974). His work has focused on the role of mass media and information technology in social control, and qualitative methodology. His most recent books are Gonzo Governance: The Media Logic of Donald Trump (Routledge, 2023), Terrorism and the Politics of Fear (2nd Edition, Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), and The Media Syndrome (Routledge, 2016). 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. In the fall of 2012, he was a Fulbright Specialist in Germany (Zeppelin University) and a Distinguished Research Professor in Australia (Law Faculty, University of New South Wales). He also received a Fulbright Specialist Award at The Catholic University in Lisbon, Portugal, in Spring 2017.