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A 'moral panic' is a reaction by a group of people based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behavior or group, frequently a minority group or a subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses a menace to society. It has also been more broadly defined as an "episode, condition, person or group of persons" that has in recent times been "defined as a threat to societal values and interests."^[1] They are byproducts of controversies that produce arguments and social tension, or aren't easily discussed as some of these moral panics are taboo to many people.^[2]
These panics are generally fueled by media coverage or outright propaganda around a social issue, although semi-spontaneous moral panics do occur. Mass hysteria can be an element in these movements, but moral panic is different from mass hysteria in that a moral panic is specifically framed in terms of morality and is usually expressed as outrage rather than unadulterated fear. Moral panics (as defined by Stanley Cohen) revolve around a perceived threat to a value or norm held by a society normally stimulated by glorification within the mass media or 'folk legend' within societies. Panics have a number of outcomes, the most poignant being the certification to the players within the panic that what they are doing appears to warrant observation by mass media and therefore may push them further into the activities that led to the original feeling of moral panic.
The influences and behaviors of young people are common themes in many moral panics.

Contents

Origins and use of the term

Examples of moral panics

See also

References

External links

Origins and use of the term

The term was coined by Stanley Cohen in 1972 to describe media coverage of Mods and Rockers in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. A factor in moral panic is the deviancy amplification spiral, the phenomenon defined by media critics as an increasing cycle of reporting on a category of antisocial behavior or other undesirable events.
While the term ''moral panic'' is relatively recent, many social scientists point to the Middletown studies, first conducted in 1925, as containing the first in-depth study of this phenomenon. In these studies, researchers found that community and religious leaders in an American town condemned then-new technology such as the radio and automobile for promoting immoral behavior. For example, a pastor interviewed in this study referred to the automobile as a "house of prostitution on wheels," and condemned this brand new invention for giving citizens a way of driving out of town when they should be attending church.
In ''Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order'' (1978), Stuart Hall and his colleagues studied the reaction to the importation into the U.K. of the heretofore American phenomenon of mugging. Employing Cohen's definition of ''moral panic,'' Hall ''et. al.'' theorized that the "rising crime rate equation" has an ideological function relating to social control. Crime statistics, in Hall's view, are often manipulated for political and economic purposes. Moral panics (e.g. over mugging) could thereby be ignited in order to create public support for the need to "police the crisis." The media play a central role in the "social production of news" in order to reap the rewards of lurid crime stories.^[3]

Examples of moral panics

A wide variety of real or imagined phenomena have inspired moral panics. Satanic ritual abuse is an example of an imagined phenomenon that gave rise to a series of moral panics which originated in the U.S., but spread to the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s.Goode, E. and N. Ben-Yahuda. 1994. ''Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance.'' Oxford: Blackwell. 57-65; 112. ISBN 063118905X (paperback) ISBN 0631189041 (hardcover)^[4] Moral panics often take the form of persecutions of particular groups. Examples include anti-Semitic pogroms, Stalinist purges, the witch-hunts of Renaissance Europe and the demonization of Communists (''see'' "McCarthyism") in the US during the 1950s.
An example of a very real phenomenon which is, nevertheless, often surrounded by moral panic, is pedophilia or child sexual abuse. Fear of "molesters" makes for sensational news. An ongoing tabloid newspaper campaign in the UK resulted in the (incorrectly) reported^[5] assault and persecution of a paediatrician by an angry mob (which had confused the two words) in August 2000. ^[6] In 2005 a man in Manchester, England was killed by a knife after being mistakenly accused of child molestation by a mentally disordered man in the neighbourhood.^[7] Also in 2005, a 68 year-old man from Portsmouth, England died in hospital after being attacked by a group who falsely accused him of being a paedophile. ^[8]

See also

★ Book burning

★ Conspiracy theory

★ Crowd psychology

★ Culture of fear

★ Folk devil

★ For The Children (politics)

★ Missing white woman syndrome

★ Propaganda

★ Scapegoat

★ Witch hunts

★ White Slavery

References

1.
★ Cohen, Stanley. ''Folk devils and moral panics''. London: Mac Gibbon and Kee, 1972. ISBN 0-415-26712-9 p. 9
2. Kuzma, Cindy. "Rights and Liberties: Sex, Lies, and Moral Panics". ''AlterNet''. September 28, 2005. Accessed March 27, 2007.
3. Hall, S., ''et al''. 1978. ''Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order.'' London: Macmillan Press. ISBN 0333220617 (paperback) ISBN 0333220609 (hardbound)
4. Jenkins, P. 1998. ''Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America.'' New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p 230-231. ISBN 0300109636 (paperback) ISBN 0300073879 (hardcover)
5. "Whispering game" by Brendan O'Neill, ''BBC News'', February 16, 2006.
6. "Plain stupid: British vigilantes mistake a pediatrician for a pedophile" by Jack Boulware, ''Salon.com'', September 26, 2000.
7. "Vigilante violence: Death by gossip" by Ian Herbert, ''The Independent'', March 23, 2005.
8. "Gang 'killed falsely-accused man'" ''BBC News'', Wednesday, 18 April 2007

External links

★ Moral Panics, ''MediaKnowAll'' (website).

★ "Society's moral panic attacks - all grist for the media mill" by Russ Grayson, ''On Line Opinion'', August 16, 2004.

★ "Be afraid, be very afraid... no, don't" by Frank Furedi, ''Times Higher Education Supplement'', September 16, 2005.

★ "Moral panics, old and new" by Gilbert Herdt, ''American Sexuality''. Accessed, March 15, 2007.

★ "Moral Panics Over Youth Culture and Video Games" by Kenneth A. Gagne, bachelor's thesis, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, April 27, 2001.

★ "Who's afraid of sexual minorities? Homosexuals, moral panic, and the exercise of social control" by Iwona Zielenska, ''Sheffield University Centre for Criminological Research, Occasional Paper'' 1, 2005.

★ "Abortion as Moral Panic: How reproductive rights became a divisive political issue" by Carole Joffe, ''American Sexuality''. Accessed March 27, 2007.