Sociedad del riesgo, medios de comunicación y bandas latinas. Pero bueno! ¿Usted no lee los periódicos?

Abstract

The problem with Latin gangs is sufficiently relevant to dedicate space for different reasons: because of the delinquency and the violence they generate; because of their relationship with the largest immigrant group in Spain, South-Americans; because of the socio-demographic characteristics of their protagonists; because of the racist and xenophobic behaviours they could cause in the native population and because of the synergies originated between the special features of the phenomenon and the social dynamics in the context of modernity. This paper will try to analyse a concrete aspect of the phenomenon, Mass Media (written press) it´s role on social construction of representations, images and perceptions created about immigrants and juvenile Latin gangs. Relationships that exist between the construction of facts in Mass Media and the social characteristics that have arisen around the late modernity crisis, above all, the concept of a society at risk and the collective fear of Latin gangs, as a part of a wider problem of the immigration phenomenon