Moral panics (original) (raw)

Moral Panics and the British Media: A look at some contemporray "Folk Devils".

The term moral panic has been widely adopted both by the mass media and in everyday usage to refer to the exaggerated social reaction caused by the activities of particular groups and/or individuals. Such activities are invariably seen (at the time at least) as major social concerns and the media led reaction magnifies and widens the 'panic' surrounding them. This review starts by considering Stan Cohen's seminal work on and analysis of moral panics -indeed it was his initial research in the early 1970s that popularized the term itself -and looks at Jock Young's almost contemporaneous study of drug users. More recent studies that have reflected on and attempted to refine Cohen's work, including Young's revisiting of the notion that moral panics 'translate fantasy into reality', are highlighted as is the relationship between 'signal crimes' and moral panics. It then considers some historical and contemporary examples of moral panics surrounding some quite different activities (and perpetrators of them) -in particular, garotting in mid-Victorian England, 'hoodies' and paedophilia. The review concludes that there are key elements to moral panics and that these panics are the result of real events and actual behaviour and cannot be dismissed as myths.

Beyond folk devil resistance: Linking moral panic and moral regulation

Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2011

This article is a contribution to widening the focus of moral panic studies. Our aim is to advance recent attempts to link moral panic studies to the criminological literature on moral regulation. We argue that moral panics should be conceptualized as volatile expressions of long-term moral regulation processes. To substantiate these conceptual and theoretical arguments, we examine claims-making activities about the threat posed by British youth who don hooded tops in public places.

Moral panic: From sociological concept to public discourse

Crime, Media, Culture, 2009

This paper examines the nature and extent of news reports using the sociological concept, `moral panic' (MP). Qualitative content analysis reveals that moral panic is commonly used in news reports in the USA, UK, Australia, and other countries, but it is more likely to be compatible with print (e.g. newspaper) formats than television reports. It is also widely used in literary and art reviews, editorials and op-ed pieces, often by social scientists. Use of the concept has increased over the last decade, particularly in news reports as part of an `opposing' voice or the `other side' of articles about deviant behavior, sexual behavior, and drug use. It is suggested that moral panic as `opposition' fits the entertainment news format, and while this sustains its use by writers and familiarity to audience members, it also appears to be associated with certain topics (e.g. sex and drugs), but not others, such as terrorism in the mainstream media. Questions are raised for a...

The idea of moral panic – ten dimensions of dispute

Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 2011

This paper explores the open and contested concept of moral panic over its 40-year history, exploring the contributions made by the concept’s key originators, as well as contemporary researchers. While most moral panic researchers are critical, humanist, interpretivist, interventionist and qualitative, this paper highlights ten areas of productive dispute within and around the meaning of moral panic theory’s ‘common sense’. Such diversity of interpretation creates multiple possibilities for convergent and divergent theorization and research within a supposedly singular conceptual framework. This lack of closure and consequent diversity of political standpoints, intellectual perspectives and fields of empirical focus, rather than representing the weakness of the concept of moral panic, reflects and contributes to its successful diffusion, escalation and innovation.

THE RISE (AND REFINEMENT) OF MORAL PANIC

The following chapter provides an overview of the dominant approaches to understanding the impact of mediation on media consumers. Before approaching the topic regarding video games however, it is important to plot the trajectory of how we have historically understood moral panics from the media. To this end, the chapter will cover six main areas of thought: a definition of moral panic, early accounts of media fears, the rise of moral panics as a result of mass communication, the refinement of media effects as individual processing, interactivity as a key igniter of the moral panic debate, and a contemporary view of media effects as the interaction of messages and the idiosyncratic ways they are processed. Moral Panic, Defined As a social science, the study of media psychology aims to untangle the " complex relationship between humans and the evolving digital environment. " 1 If we were to remove the term " digital " from this definition, we can broadly explain that the goal of media psychology is to better understand how individuals use and are affected by mediated messages. By effects, we are referring to how media might impact people at the cognitive (thoughts), affective (feelings), and behavioral (actions) levels. While not by definition, most scholarly and public interest tends to focus on the potential for negative media effects – that is, as a whole we are driven to