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Politics, Power and the Media: The Visibility of Environmental and Eco Terrorism

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Invisible Crimes and Social Harms

Part of the book series: Critical Criminological Perspectives ((CCRP))

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Abstract

We are often told by politicians and the media that we live in an increasingly dangerous world, with many threats facing us. There is also an assumption that we face a far greater number of risks/threats than we have ever faced in the past (Beck 1999; Furedi 2002) in part due to our increased inter connectedness (Aas 2013). Whether that is true is debatable and possibly the result of more visibility and awareness of threats through better reporting rather than actual danger. These threats are crimes and harms that take on many forms, from random violence on the street to natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, but none may be more fear-inducing than terrorism. As proposed in the Introduction to this volume, there are a variety of features that make crime and harm, such as terrorism, visible or invisible, exposed or hidden. Whereas Chapter 2 details some historico-structural-cultural aspects that impact upon the existence and resilience of invisibility, this chapter investigates the role of politics, power and the media in shaping and defining, uncovering or covering, suffering and injustice through an exploration of two particular kinds of terrorism — environmental and eco.

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© 2014 Hayley Watson and Tanya Wyatt

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Watson, H., Wyatt, T. (2014). Politics, Power and the Media: The Visibility of Environmental and Eco Terrorism. In: Davies, P., Francis, P., Wyatt, T. (eds) Invisible Crimes and Social Harms. Critical Criminological Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137347824_3

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