Watts, the 1965 Los Angeles Riots, and the Communicative Construction of the Fear Epicenter of Los Angeles A previous version of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Annual Conference, Chicago, 2001

215 mental maps collected in 1998 indicate that Watts is Los Angeles’ epicenter of fear. Spatial cluster analysis provides evidence that this fear is most closely associated with the 1965 “Watts” riots. The role played by television in constructing spatial fear is proposed as a possible explanation for the persistence of this collective memory. Analysis of phone survey data and of a set of mental maps indicates that the greatest fear of Watts is found among respondents with stronger dependency relations with television.