Description: Are race-related rumors rooted in the personality traits of the individual? Are they a kind of "improvised news" for a community? Do they come and go at random or form definite, recognizable patterns? What role do the news media play in spreading rumors? These and other questions are treated in this classic study
Brief description:
Terry Ann Knopf teaches arts and media criticism at Boston University's Journalism Department. Earlier, she worked as a TV critic for the Miami Herald and the Patriot Ledger, and was also a correspondent at the Boston Globe specializing in the arts and media.
Review Quotes:
"Sociological studies of rumor are noted by their scarcity, thus this book . . . is welcome. . . . [The] author presents a 'process' model of racial disorder. This approach argues for the inclusion of structural characteristics . . . as well as values . . . as predisposing and necessary conditions for racial violence. Rumors are seen as functionally related to these cleavages in the system in that they confirm, intensify, and link hostile beliefs in both racial groups. . . . This book deals with an important and relatively neglected area of research and has its value as a suggestion of where more . . . investigators will . . . begin."
--Raymond J. Murphy, Contemporary Sociology