Born in Hungary in 1947, Frank Furedi, sociologist, teaches at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. He is a supporter of the British Humanist Association. Furedi is a lead writer for the web-journal Spiked Online, and the author of numerous essays on the sociology of risk, including Culture of Fear: Risk Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation (1997), The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race (1998), Paranoid Parenting: Abandon Your Anxieties and Be a Good Parent (2001), Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age (2003) and The Politics of Fear. Beyond Left and Right (2005). In this last work he denounces the obsession with risk, used as an instrument by certain organizations to achieve their own objectives. In 2007, he published Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown, (Continuum International Publishing Group), in which he analyses the impact of the phenomenon of terrorism after the attacks in New York on 11 September 2001.

Frank Furedi believes that fear, the theme of the WSS discussion, plays a key role in the conscience of the twenty-first century wo/man. In order to understand its dimensions and consequences we need to look at the culture of contemporary society and in particular, at social norms and customs that regulate the ways we feel and express fear. Cultural norms are very important for the way we feel fear. Our reactions to certain circumstances are mediated by behaviour models that tell people what we expect from them when they find themselves facing a threat and how they should feel and respond. This experience demonstrated how the intensity of fear is not directly proportional to the actual contents of the specific threat.

He adds that fear is a cultural phenomenon, which is not produced as a spontaneous effect of individual interaction. Rather, it is socially constructed phenomenon, a result of the carefully directed actions of those he defines as "entrepreneurs of fear", referring here to those who deeply impact change and acceptance of behaviour patterns. He also refers to the ways and the emotional intensity with which persons experience these fears in the globalised society, as compared with the past, turning their own social fears into collective anxieties and worries. This way, constant references to risks and threats take on an increasingly important role in language and communication. In the political sphere the aim is to amplify the potential risks from internal and external enemies with the purpose of stabilizing and legitimising the government. In the media, dwelling on parts of the news that attract the attention of the more impressionable part of the public is aimed at increasing the viewing statistics. And in the field of economics, fears can be manipulated for example as a marketing strategy, using them to sell products which can give users confidence (wrinkle creams, burglar alarms for apartments, et.).

The creation of fear is related to a growing tendency to see risk as an independent variable. The transformation of risk into fear, in turn, grows along with the tendency to show risk as a negative emotion and a threat to individual security. In Culture of fear (2005), Furedi points out that the post-modern society pushes us to consider human experience as a potential risk to our security. There are few certainties nowadays, yet one of them is our fearful response to uncertainty. This means that the obsession with risk has important implications for the make-up of identity. In particular, the awareness of being exposed to threats with independent dynamics clearly derives from the concept of "being at risk", where the condition of the person exposed to a series of threats becomes an ingrained personal attribute of the individual just as much as any other physical attribute of the person and human being.

Fear is institutionalised and culturally amplified precisely through the management of risk (environmental, food, social, political, economic). The mass media are undisputed "entrepreneurs" in this process of reinforcing fear, built upon the pre-existing individual insecurities. From global warming to obesity, from bird flu to tsunamis, from crime to increasing immigration, etc… through to mediatization processes, our daily lives end up being permeated by incessant alarm warnings on a growing number of dangers that man and the planet face. This increases our sense of impotence and vulnerability. The fear of war and terrorism are emblematic examples, which are currently at the centre of Frank Furedi's scientific interest.

In his last book, Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown (2007), Furedi explores the relationship between the XXIst century western culture and the overwhelming fear of terrorism. The attack on the twin towers laid bare to the whole world the vulnerability of a nation that considered itself inviolable. In its aftermath, the attention that mass media has used to communicate about it provides a source of anguish for people as never before. Terrorist attacks, especially when they are suicide attacks, is a phenomenon that escapes the comprehension of most western cultures. It stands for a casual and terrifying irrationality, which negates the fundamental value of life. The Hungarian sociologist feels that the fear of falling victim to a terrorist attack, in the same way as many other fears like the uncontrollable fear of falling ill represent the final fear that through death, the triumph of Not Being will prevail. This is the negation of Being, or of man and society.

But the main fear that Furedi sees today, a fear that does not seem to be dying down, is that the "war on terror", a response to the need to placate the fear of international terrorism, is creating a climate of fear that could be politically advantageous for those who have specific interests to defend. An example is in the case of some environmental organizations that dangle the scarecrow of bio terrorism in front of us in an attempt to achieve their objectives. The rhetorical enlargement of the significance of security has resulted in making terrorism the yardstick by which we measure all the other threats and on which we build all the other fears. And from this point of view, the outstanding characteristic of our century is the "terrorist" use of terrorism itself and not so much the resurgence of terrorism, something that has always existed during human history albeit in different forms.