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A moral panic can be defined as "the intensity of feeling expressed by a large number of people about a specific group of people who appear to threaten the social order at a given time." Stanley Cohen, author of the seminal Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1973), says moral panic occurs when " condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values, are known by researchers as "moral entrepreneurs," while those targeted are known as a "folk devil." 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. The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even if they are not self-consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic.

Origins and use of the term

While many believe the term was coined by Stanley Cohen to describe press reporting and the reaction of the establishment to the behaviour of mods and rockers, it was actually first used by his colleague Jock Young when he used it in reference to the reaction to drug takers in Notting Hill.

Many sociologists have pointed out the differences between definitions of a moral panic for American and British sociologists. Kenneth Thompson has said that American sociologists tend to emphasize psychological factors whereas the British portray moral panics as crises of capitalism.

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 UK 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.

Characteristics

Moral Panics have several distinct features. The process by which these are created is best explained with Cohen's Deviancy Amplification Spiral:

• Concern - There must be awareness that the behaviour of the group or category in question is likely to have a negative impact on society.
• Hostility - An increase in hostility towards the group in question and they become "folk devils". A clear division forms between "them" and "us".
• Consensus - Though concern does not have to be nationwide, there must be widespread acceptance that the group in question poses a very real threat to society. It is important at this stage that the "moral entrepreneurs" are vocal and the "folk devils" appear weak and disorganised.
• Disproportionality - The public is given statistics that are disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the accused group.
• Volatility - Moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as quickly as they appeared due to a wane in public interest or news reports changing to another topic.

Examples of use of the term

Sexual abuse

Satanic ritual abuse is regarded as a series of moral panics originating in the U.S., and spreading to other English-speaking countries in the 1980s and 1990s. Similarly, the reactions to pedophilia in the Western world has been cited by Yvonne Jewkes as "the most significant moral panic of the last two decades."

Pogroms, purges and witch-hunts

Persecutions of individuals or especially of groups have been cited as moral panics, such as anti-Semitic pogroms, Stalinist purges, the witch-hunts of Renaissance Europe, the McCarthyist public interrogations and blacklisting of Communists in the US during the 1950s, and various actions in Western countries following the September 11th attacks affecting Arabs, Muslims, or those mistaken for them.

War on Drugs

Some critics find moral panic in support for the War on Drugs. For example a Royal Society of Arts commission concluded that "the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, ... is driven more by 'moral panic' than by a practical desire to reduce harm." Similarly, support for video game and media regulation has been linked to moral panic.

Rainbow parties

A 2003 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show claimed that there was a widespread fashion among teenage girls to take part in elaborate sex orgies named rainbow parties. Although fantastic from the outset, and despite the fact that it was never substantiated that even a single "rainbow party" had taken place before, nor even that a corresponding "urban myth" had been circulating among teenagers, the claim caused popular reverberations that have been described as "moral panic."

Criticism

In Folk Devils and Moral Panic, Cohen outlines some of the criticisms that have arisen in response to moral panic theory. One of these is of the term "panic" itself, as it has connotations of irrationality and a lack of control. Cohen maintains that "panic" is a suitable term when used as an extended metaphor. Another criticism is that of disproportionality. The problem with this argument is that there is no way to measure what a proportionate reaction should be to a specific action. Others have criticized Cohen's work stating that not all the folk devils expressed in his work are vulnerable or unfairly maligned. Jewkes has also raised issue with the term 'morality' and how it is accepted unproblematically in 'moral panics'.

See also

• Deviancy Amplification Spiral
• Culture of fear
• Folk devil
• For The Children (politics)
• Mass hysteria
• Missing white woman syndrome
• Scapegoat
• Witch hunts

References

1. ^ Jones, M, and E. Jones. (1999). Mass Media. London: Macmillan Press
2. Cohen, S. (1973). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. St Albans: Paladin, p.9
3. Kuzma, Cindy. "Rights and Liberties: Sex, Lies, and Moral Panics". AlterNet. September 28, 2005. Accessed September 5, 2008.
4. Cohen, S., p.16
5. Thompson, K. in C. Critcher, (2006). Critical readings: Moral Panics in the Media. Berkshire: Open University Press, 2006)
6. Hall, S., et al. 1978. Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. London: Macmillan Press. ISBN 0333220617 (paperback) ISBN 0333220609 (hardbound)
7. ^ Goode, E (1994). Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 57–65, 112. ISBN 063118905X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
8. Jenkins, P (1998). Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 230–231. ISBN 0300109636.
9. Victor JS (1993). Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend. Open Court Publishing Company. ISBN 081269192X.
10. de Young, Mary (2004). The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic. Jefferson, North Carolina, United States: McFarland and Company. ISBN 0786418303.
11. ^ Jewkes Y (2004). Media and crime. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage. pp. 76–77. ISBN 0-7619-4765-5.
12. "Drugs – facing facts: The report of the RSA Commission on Illegal Drugs, Communities and Public Policy" (pdf). Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce. 2007. p. 15. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
13. Byrd, Patrick (2007). "It's All Fun and Games Until Somebody Gets Hurt: The Effectiveness of Proposed Video Game Regulation" (pdf). Retrieved 2007-03-19.
14. Lewin, T (2005-06-30). "Are These Parties for Real?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
15. Cohen, S. (1980) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. Oxford: Martin Robertson, pp. xxvi-xxxi

External links

• Section 3.4: "Interpreting the crime problem" from Free OpenLearn LearningSpace Unit DD100_1 Online Open Education Resource Creative Commons by-nc-sa Licensed (originally written for the Open University Course, DD100, 2000)

• Sociology
• Folklore
• Social psychology
• Morality
• Crowd psychology