eCahill on Culture & Society in Creative Media: Moral Panic

“A moral panic refers to the reaction of a group of people based on the false belief that another sub-culture or a group poses danger to the society.”(1)

It was Stanley Cohen, in his work, Folk Devils and Moral Panics. (1987) who first coined the term 'moral panics'. He defined the concept as a sporadic episode, which as it occurs, subjects society to bouts of moral panic, or in other terms, worry about the values and principles which society upholds which may be in jeopardy. He describes its characteristics as "a condition, episode, person or group of persons [who] become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." [Cohen, 1987: 9](2)

Cohens work predominantly focused on the Mods and Rockers, the ‘folk devils’, of the 60s and the controversy generated around them as a result of the medias sensationalism of groups which it deemed a deviance and a threat to what Cohen called the ‘control culture’.

"Moral panics then, are those processes whereby members of a society and culture become 'morally sensitized' to the challenges and menaces posed to 'their' accepted values and ways of life, by the activities of groups defined as deviant. The process underscores the importance of the mass media in providing, maintaining and 'policing' the available frameworks and definitions of deviance, which structure both public awareness of, and attitudes towards, social problems." - Key Concepts in Communication (O'Sullivan, Fiske et al 1983) (3)

Throughout history, groups have been victimized under the pressure of authority groups, most recently since the emergence of subcultures such as the Teds of post-ww2 Britian where youths and the middle class began to rebel against the ideals of the upper classes. Such changes in authority and class shifts are always hard to accept and as such, members in authority tend to unfairly demonized such groups as a form of punishment.

“Media coverage is often key to producing moral panic, because certain stories get done to death in the media. This is because the press will tend to latch onto anything of a bizarre nature as more interesting than standard crimes. For instance, a few instances of accusations of Satanism in the 1970s and early 1980s created significant moral panic. Many people truly feared that Satan was being worshipped in just about every town in the US, and that their children would “fall in” with a satanic cult. Though virtually every instance of satanic ritual has been largely discounted after significant investigation, this is still something that concerns many, and their fear grows from an inflated view of the danger.”(4)

These moral panics can quite often be provoked by boredom and the mass media coverage which in many cases can encourage violence or other forms of confrontation or competition by building simple, passive situations into spectacles; in turn feeding media coverage and its need by the public. A perfect example of this was the public confrontations between Mods and Rockers in the 60s. In the beginning, these two differing groups coexisted and socialized in similar areas with little animosity. As these two groups became known and observed by the public, the media began creating a Mod-Rocker polarity, which encouraged violent clashes and forced non-participating teenagers to take sides.

From here, the media has latched onto sub cultures, taken sparse groups of individuals and provided an ideological framework; thus taking sub cultures mainstream and capitalizing on its coverage. This media coverage and motivation goes on to create a fictional image of these sparse groups in the public as full blown youth movements and therefore a threat to the fabric of our peaceful and structured society. Thus, the presentation of these groups in the media can go on to outrage the wider society and generate a sense of persecution and group solidarity among these sub cultures. Every generation has these, most notably:

Mods v Rockers of the 1960s.
Skinheads of the 1970s.
Punks of the 1970s.
Football casuals of the 70s / 80s.
New romantics of the 1980s.
Goths of the 80s / 90s.
Emos of the 90s / 00s.

In worst case scenarios “moral panic may be aimed at a particular group, it can lead to mobs attacking members of that group, or mistakenly attacking people who are supposed members of the group. It has also led to mass killings of people who seem to threaten the very fabric of society. The Salem Witch trials and mass executions, the Crusades, McCarthyism, pogroms, and the Holocaust can all be called moral panics.”(5)