The mass-media have a long history of creating and reinforcing stereotypes, whether they be founded in gender, race, class or culture. And now, in the so-called \’war on terror\’ years, this caricaturing of cultures is helping to create a monumental clash of civilizations. In politics, as on TV, fear sells. And the easiest way to create fear in a population is to create a nefarious, shadowy \’Other\’, an Other so far removed from our beliefs, ethics and way of life as to seem all but inhuman. The Nazis, pioneers of mass-media propaganda, managed to convince a nation that it was being bled dry by the Jews, communists, gypsies, and anyone else that they could scapegoat. With relentless repetition and indoctrination …