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A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. By Michael Barkun. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 243, preface, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95 cloth); From Angels to Aliens. Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural. By Lynn Schofield Clark. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 292, preface, acknowledgments, appendices, notes, index. $29.95 cloth)
The two books reviewed here address two separate bodies of contemporary American interest in supernatural phenomena and other evil occurrences-conspiracy theories, and adolescent beliefs grounded in media culture. While the teen volume, From Angels to Aliens, uses an ethnographic research methodology, A Culture of Conspiracy privileges film, radio, internet and print because, according to the author, contemporary media far outstrip oral transmission in the spread of conspiracy materials (12), and media reach countless millions of people who in an earlier day would never be exposed to such materials (181). Both authors are astonishingly well-grounded in literary, oral, and media sources, offering many insights into contemporary social experience. While neither evinces the faintest knowledge of folklore theory, both develop credible theorized positions grounded in their respective academic fields (political science for Barkun, sociology for Clark)-esentially, that certain ideas will capture the imaginations of vast segments of the culture if 1) these ideas are plausible and 2) they touch people's fears.
The management of fear is a central theme in both books. Adolescents' fears are projected in their supernatural stories and practices: fears of loneliness, of sex,...