Media Effects and Moral Panics - Case Study Example

?Media Effects and Moral Panics Introduction: The media violence cases have increased manifold these days. These cases have severely affected the moral standards of the society at large. The growing importance of media is undeniable these days. The media has brought the world at the fingertips. Today, sitting at home we are able to access every bit of information worldwide. With globalization and increase in cross border activities across the globe the world is getting interconnected these days. With this, the media activities have also increased worldwide. Although the media has helped a lot in connecting the entire globe, there are also huge instances of media violence, which is crippling the entire nation and thus creating moral panics. Going by the social cognitive theory, which takes into account behavioral factors, personal and environmental influences on young minds. The effect of media falls under the non-endogenous environmental factors, which essentially work through observational pattern of learning. Personal factors include one’s wishes and understanding of the self, beliefs and motivations while behavioral factors comprise of the actions of an individual acquired from previous interactions. These three aspects interact with one another with the help of an occurrence called reciprocal determinism (Kirsh, 2009, p.34). In topical times, the different forms of entertainment and media including video games and the Internet render sufficient opportunities to the young population for gaining knowledge through observation. Moreover there are instances about the effects that are being summoned upon the children and adults for high aggression and aggressive modes of behavior when they are exposed to violent senses and images. The main idea in this paper is to portray the way in which “violence” and aggressions are portrayed by the media and the harmful impact it has on the young population in the form of “moral panic”, a term coined by Stanley Cohen (Banks, 2004, p. 173). This issue of moral panic arises when the observational learning experience of the young population becomes a threat to the social ethics and well-being. The major issue is the representation of real violence and necessary conflation with regards to the T.V, the film or video games and any other activity, which is designated to be real violent or aggressive. (Andersen, 2008, pp.549-550) Case study: There have been instances of regular killing and murder cases considering mainly the white skinned young females, which has generated sensation in the media world and has created kneejerk legislation. However the case of abduction by the strangers is decreasing but the danger which is getting more pronounced for the children is the abduction of children by the family members who take part in major perpetration, kidnapping and abuse. The UK press has initiated a mass campaigning in the name ‘campaign against paedos’ after the case of the murder of Sarah Pyne who was aged only 8 years in July 2000. Sarah Pyne a very young white skinned girl was kidnapped and then was brutally murdered on 1/7/2000 by Roy Whiting. The murderer was immediately tried and condemned in the court. The kidnap took place from the fields in Kingston Gorse near Littlehampton in the Western part of Sussex where the little girl had been playing. The sudden disappearance of Sarah created a huge ripple in the area and led to massive search being conducted by the police and this has generated enough media interest and attention. Later on, her body was found near Pulborough in a field, which was about 20 miles away from Kingston Gorse on 17th of July. The person Roy Whiting had been the major suspect for the police from the beginning but lack of evidence against him was creating a great impediment for the police to sue the murderer. But later on after the discovery of Sarah’s dress at Goose Green crossroads near Coolham, essential forensic investigations were conducted, which helped the police to charge the person and he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment. (Townsend, 2006; Gray 2000) This murder case was highly tragic and it caused a great bit of sensation in the whole of Great Britain and a campaign was even initiated for “Sarah’s law” to get introduced which is basically aimed at tracking the whereabouts of the known “paedophiles”. Sarah’s mother Sarah had been appointed as the first Victims Commissioner and the way she dealt with her daughter’s murder has been incredible and noteworthy. But after the trial got over, the news of the incident disappeared from the front page of the public newspapers and the people were given reassurance of the lone paedophile Roy Whitning was staying in prison and he could not hurt anybody more. However, a connection has been observed with the murder of Sarah Pyne and the Hectate, which is the goddess of crossroads specially the Y-shaped crossroads. Whiting had been found at three places, firstly at Buck Barn garage, where he fuelled his white van at the main junction, secondly at Goose Green crossroads where the shoes and parts of her dress was discovered and lastly near to Adversane crossroads on the A29 the place where Sarah’s body was discovered. Goose, green and Adversane had been traced to be Y shaped. The murder on the other hand could be directly linked to the Goddess Hectate as the different characteristics and representative features of the Hectate had been observed in the clue to Sarah’s murder. The brutal murderer Roy Whiting had been previously arrested also in connection to cases of sexual assault on an 8-year-old child and had been sentenced to four years’ prison although it was reduced later to two years. Moreover it was later observed that the murderer had previous connection to the locality by virtue of his long stay near that zone on account of studying mechanics course. So there might be other people also involved in the case, as the murder plot was not his sole intelligence plan. Also the parents of Sarah Payne had connection with the underworld and had problems with alcohol also which might trigger a common reaction to such horrendous experience. Media outcry: The murder case of Sarah Payne drew huge media outcry and media campaign against such a brutal attack. When it was found that the man who was convicted for the this brutal murder had previous cases of conviction, abduction and indecent assault, a voice was largely raised against the paedophiles by the media.In a popular Sunday newspaper “News of World” a campaign was launched for the general introduction of “Sarah’s Law” to help the common people know if there was anyone living nearby had names in the “Sex Offenders Register”. Even lists of suspected criminals and paedophiles and their images were also published although the list might not be exhaustive (Townsend, 2006). After such a brutal murder, when the news had been published worldwide through the invention of the media, and when there was a huge outcry for the implementation of “Sarah Law”, people who were mainly concerned about their past-partner’s boyfriends formed the largest members who started making enquiries under the new Law which allowed publish of sex offenses registered under Law. The findings were mainly initiated under the pilot sex offender disclosure Law which was mainly formulated to guide those concerned about the serious threats initiated by potential abusers. The Home Office allows extending the new law allover England and Wales. The ministers took a major decision to fully initialize the scheme after four year-long pilots under the so-called “Sarah’s law” actually resulted in uncovering the database of potential criminals having attachment with a child after receiving phone calls. This allowed parents to interrogate police regarding the whereabouts of anybody having access to their kids. Under the scheme officers can make disclosure about any related details regarding the concerned person’s previous sex and crimes to the parents if it is attached to the interest of the concerned child. However when the new scheme was introduced it was though that the inquiries would mostly arrive from women asking about information about their new partners. But it was later found that inquiries mostly arrive from men broken up with their partners with whom they had nourished a child. However the police would need to be highly careful regarding any query about the past history of the new partner as this could prove to be an attempt to return back to the old partner. (Ford, 2010; Marsh & Melville, 2009, p.61) Moral Panics: Once the media took active part in campaigning against the ‘paedos’ under the vicious campaign ‘name and shame’ which immediately resulted in a large number of excited and vigilante crowds taking to the street and started terrorizing many innocent crowds having their names similar in any way or having resemblance to the sex offenders. At the basic heart of the NOW’s campaign there was far outcry to transform the law on sex-offenders. (Wilson, 2010; Rosengren, 1994, pp.133-135) The highly sensitive news, which are designed and displayed by the media, is inseparably attached to the notion of moral panics and is responsible for exacerbating the public hysteria concerning paedophilia. The highly sensitive news being reported the British press have been found to be responsible for initiating insalubrious emotions from the people. Those responses have resulted in different modes of vigilante violence and have generated an atmosphere of hysterical hatred that is choking the idea of paedophilia and have curtailed the mode of responding the sensible and progressive discourse of analyzing the issue in a rational and civilized mode which is conducive to developing an environment providing optimum level of safety for the British kids and correspondingly the risk associated with paedophilia can be minimized to a large extent. The term sensationalism is directly involved in the context of the different methods developed by the media in relation to the news, which are deliberately produced exacerbating intense excitement or indignation in the context of paedophilia. (Moral Panic, n.d., p.1) Sensationalism is basically aimed at provoking public attention or excitement by the usage of highly shocking stories. Any sensationalistic presentation promotes simplicity and generalization and stresses mostly on conflict rather than any mutual negotiation and mainly emphasizes on blame rather than mutual understanding. Sensitive news coverage generally uses highly electrified, emotive and personalized language and it had very dangerous results when it is applied to dangerous issues regarding paedophilia. The extent of truthfulness and accuracy of the journalistic intent and the reader’s perception regarding any sensitive issue is hard to confirm and it depends on individual perception. A reader may doubt the clear motivations on the behalf of the news article but ultimately it is with the news organizations who actually understand the worthiness of their displayed news because they believe that it represents the social concern legitimately. So the fact is that whether the news articles generated by the media are truly authentic or not is difficult to gauge but definitely the blend of news on the different modes of violence being published by the news articles create a definite ripple effect among the whole society at large. (Thompson, 2007, pp.1-2) Considering the case study discussed above about the brutal killing of Sarah Payne by the paedophile Roy Whiting which involved hard core sexual abuse and horrendous murder and the way the news had been featured in different articles and shown in other forms of media definitely creates a sensation among the common public including the youth section of the society at large. This is because the critical violence in the incident and the mode and method of killing of the young white-skinned girl has had a severing impact upon the youth society also at large. This is because the young kids are highly influenced by the news and mainly the pictures of the brutal killing of Sarah Payne, which were being shown in different news channels from time to time. These kids don’t have that much maturity to judge what is right or wrong and they enjoy these activities without even knowing the brutality of these incidents that include the sexual abuse and killing. So these highly condemnable activities might directly influence the young kids and in mode of simply enjoying these things they might start trying these things unknowingly causing severe damage to their life and even educational career. Moreover, in recent times, falling upon the trap of competitions, the different media channels even show these brutal killings without any censor and sometimes even use such facts and pictures which might create a sensationalism among the society including the youth. Also the case the killing of the white skinned Sarah Payne has been linked to the goddess Hecate. This also created sensation in the society as this activity of brutal killing had been related to showing tribute to the goddess. The ways these things had been highlighted on media would directly affect the youth and this would also create a sense of moral panic among the youth, as there is no relevance to these facts. The moral panic that might develop would generate mental shock to the society and in one way it would create a huge sensation in the society. (Jewkes, 2004, pp.98-99; Treadwell, 2006, pp.84-91) There should be some strict guidelines formulated by the Government to the media about censoring certain pictures and putting a tab on publication of certain news that create a ripple on the society and also on the youth society. The young population is largely affected as they identify themselves with the victim and observational learning experiences in such cases act against the interests of the society through generation of moral panics. Unless such steps are adopted, the direct influence of these activities would result in further increase of the same and besides putting a break on these would tend to increase these activities manifold.   Bibliography: 1. Thompson, S., (2007), “Pedophilia in the news: How sensationalism in the media creates moral panic”. Helium. Available at: http://www.helium.com/items/87747-pedophilia-in-the-news-how-sensationalism-in-the-media-creates-moral-panic. (Accessed on May 26, 2011) 2. Wilson, K. (2010), “Moral Panics and Violence in the Media”, Mediaknowall, Available at: http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/mediaviolence/violence.php?pageID=moral. (Accessed on May 26,2011) 3. Ford, R. (2010) “Worried fathers main users of ‘Sarah’s law’ sex offenders checklist”, Times Online, Available at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7047782.ece. (Accessed on May 26, 2011) 4. Moral panics (n.d.), Nelsonthornes, Available at: http://www.nelsonthornes.com/aqagce/A2%20Sample%20material/media%20studies/Media.pdf. (Accessed on May 26, 2011) 5. Townsend, M. (2006). Sarah Payne's killer in plea for early release, Guardian, available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/mar/12/ukcrime.theobserver (accessed on May 26, 2011) 6. Gray, C. (2000). New police search for Sarah Payne's dress, The Independent, available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/new-police-search-for-sarah-paynes-dress-622186.html (accessed on May 26, 2011) 6. Andersen, R., (2008) Battleground, ABC-CLIO. 7. Banks, C. (2004), Criminal justice ethics, London: SAGE 8. Kirsh, S.J. (2009), Media and youth, New York: John Wiley & Sons 9. Rosengren, K E., (1994) Media effects and beyond, London: Routledge. 10. Jewkes, Y.(2004) Media and crime, London: SAGE. 11. Treadwell, J., (2006) Criminology, London: SAGE 12. Marsh, I. & G. Melville, (2009) Crime, justice and the media. London: Taylor & Francis. Read More