ABSTRACT
The global spread of infectious diseases with the potential risk for severe consequences has been a major focus of the media and a concern of the general public in recent years. Ulrich Beck1 and Anthony Giddens2 have characterized the present period as risky and existentially perilous. Proliferation of risk is partly a consequence of the processes of what Giddens calls the “sequestration of time from space” and the attendant “lifting out” of social relations from their local moorings (Giddens, 1990). The mass media play a major role in the separation of time from space. From a “risk society” thesis, the preponderance of risks in post-industrial societies precipitates anxieties (Beck, 1992).
