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Argues that Bogota, Colombia, is representative of cities whose memories have been destroyed, thereby robbing people of reference points to their identity. Residents have become fearful, & they no longer have any trust, which makes them insecure & full of rage. It is maintained that loss of a sense of belonging makes civility impossible & eventually results in a negation of citizenship. TV becomes the mechanism through which citizens relate to the city, & the images that are constructed by the media only reinforce imaginaries of fear. Urban processes are explored as processes of communication, emphasizing that it is necessary to examine what makes people take refuge in small private spaces. Fear is said to go beyond violence & danger in the streets to involve long-lasting processes that encompass the cultural anguish that stems from the loss of collective roots in cities; how the city normalizes differences; & the order imposed on residents by the city. How people confront these new fears resulting from the erosion of sociability is examined. J. Lindroth

It is argued that the focus on teenage violence has resulted in an understanding that teenagers are losing their values when, in reality, it is societal values that are changing. The insights on cultural disorder offered by anthropologists Margaret Mead (1955) & J. Meyrowitz (eg, 1992) are discussed. Mead views teenagers as representatives of an emerging culture that both breaks with, & is linked to, patterns of parental behavior. She emphasizes the need to study the ethnosocial significance of the transformation. Meyrowitz posits that adults traditionally created their own intellectual & communicative spaces; however, the separation of worlds dissolved in the latter 20th century, largely because of TV, which permits children to view the adult world. He argues that TV does not of itself change society but, rather, catalyzes preexisting movements & corrupts parental control & the hierarchical learning process. The manipulation of the generational rupture by the market & the implications of the paradigm shift are discussed. J. Lindroth