The Myth of Harm

A necessary and thorough look at how fears about horror and violent media rise and fall through history. The real horror is how often bad science and politics creates real scares for the general public. * Christopher J. Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University, USA * Arguments for the censorship of certain kinds of films, videogames, comics and websites are frequently based on the claim that they are harmful – particularly to children. The great value of Sarah Cleary’s book is that it not only explodes many of these claims, but demonstrates how the myth of harm has always operated as part of much wider strategies of social control and cultural policing. * Julian Petley, Honorary and Emeritus Professor of Journalism, Brunel University London, UK * This is an important book. In a period of renewed moral panics, and of very muddy thinking about issues of censorship, freedom of speech, the dangers of the wrong kind of popular culture in the wrong hands, and anxieties about what all this might do to our children, The Myth of Harm helps us to see more clearly. Sarah Cleary is a scholarly and nuanced critic, and yet utterly uncompromising in her historical and cultural analysis of the intellectual failings and hidden agendas of moralistic critiques of horror. * Darryl Jones, Professor of Modern British Literature and Culture, Trinity College, Ireland *