This collection provides a historical overview of violence in American popular culture from the Puritan era to the present and across a range of media.

Turning to issues of media policy, George Gerbner delivers a stinging indictment of the way the so called "information superhighway" is being constructed. By examining the logic of globalization he shows the ineffectual nature of our present responses - such as the V-Chip - to deal with the urgent crisis of the media. Showing the real uses to which the "information superhighway" will be put by its corporate masters, he urges the citizens of the world...