Moral panic theory (Folk Devils) - Stanley Cohen (1972)

Moral panic theory – Stanley Cohen (1972)

The concept of moral panics was first initialised in 1972 by Stanley Cohen when he wrote about ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The creation of the mods and rockers’

The term ‘moral panic’ is understood as: A condition, episode, person or groups of person that emerge to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests. These people are known as folk devils. Its nature is influenced by stereotypes within the mass media.

How do they start?

Moral panics begin when there are a projection of fears that surround a particular story or type of people. The media heavily influence and fuel these panics via films, TV, the news, radio and any other media means.

The media stereotype and assumes the worst relation to the panic and makes the consumer worry, a recent example is the London riots. The press can over emphasise and repeat footage to scare an audience.

He based his initial research on the ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ and the conflict between these groups of teenagers in the 60’s.

Teenagers where causing mass panic due to the differences between the ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ numerous fights were recorded and a big fight broke out of control on Brighton beach.

However the theory developed and can be applied to a number of subculture labelled as deviant or dangerous by the media.

Stanley Cohen’s findings.

He looked at how these ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ were perceived in the public eye.

The main criticism was that these people were seen to be as a threat to law and order largely through the wat the mass media represented them this is known as ‘control culture’. 

This type of media representation is known as sensationalisation.

‘A Clockwork Orange’ fascinated a quiet grammar school boy and turned him into a brutal murderer, as he beat a tramp to death, acting out a scene directly to a scene in the film.

The press sensationalised this and blamed the film entirely for the murder to scare people.

The film changed the representation of youth in a negative way and blamed the film for many murders, referring them as ‘clockwork orange’ cases.

Summarising

Moral panics were created about the effect the film had on groups of teenagers and encouraging social deviance.

Sensationalist headlines reporting incidents of violence (deviance amplification)

The youth at the time did not seem to feel like they were being encouraged by the violence however

 They did identify with some of the representations in which the life they lived (violence etc)