On the Concept of Moral Panic - Report Example

The Concept of ‘Moral Panics’ has lost its Usefulness? Introduction Moral panics, the intense feelings expressed in the general population, particularly regarding certain emerging issues that pose a great threat to the prevailing social order in societies, have been known to be a pervasive phenomenon for a very long time all over the world. Usually, a social panic arises when a given situation, event, person or group of individuals increasingly become conceptualized in discourses as a threat to the defined societal values and a perennial impediment to societal interests (Wykes 2000, p2). Conventionally, moral panics are built around controversial arguments that cause social tension since they disregard the norms or prevailing standards of what is universally agreed upon as socially acceptable behaviour in the society. Over the years, the media has been at the centre of moral panics in its pursuit of, and presentation of news that revolves around crime, deviance and disorder in society (Reiner 2007 p.376); in other words, media has in the past, both advertently and inadvertently, propagated moral panics in society. Generally, the mere practice of simply reporting the facts or reality surrounding individuals can be more than enough to yield a lot of anxiety, or panic in society; this paper discusses whether the concept of moral panic has lost its usefulness. This paper will discuss the issue of whether the concept of moral panics has lost its usefulness by drawing on existing sociological data sources on the subject, as well as present evidences of the concept’s application, especially in popular conversations or discourses in general. The concept of “Moral panics” revisited The concept of moral panics has enjoyed enormous popularity, not only in the discipline of sociology where it has inspired the establishment of a sub-specialty that devotes itself to moral panic studies, but also on the direction of cultural discourses as well as on the journalistic and political practices (Garland 2008, p.9). Typically, any social discourse or debate regarding social problems or societal risks has generally reduced social reaction to mere moral panic yet the mass media, on the other hand, has traditionally acquired an incredibly irresistible knack to converge on, and to exploit any singly anxiety-creating issue in society for all it can yield. Clearly, in an era with a great risk for exaggeration—where the mass media has demonstrated its relentless urge to capitalize on events for commercial motives and publicity, the concept of “moral panic” has increasingly taken on a new meaning, as a negating, deflationary remark, thereby becoming one of the central argumentative devices in public debates (Critcher 2003, p.2). However, the originator of this concept clearly did not intend to create a rhetorical move in cultural politics, instead, “moral panic” was fashioned as a central concept in Sociology, thoroughly built on profound theoretical foundations. In his 1972 seminal text titled “Folk Devils and Moral panics,” Stanley Cohen introduces the concept of “moral panics” and even though he does not expound on the usage of the term “panic,” it is clear that he intended its conventional meaning—a spontaneous and massive feeling of anxiety among people arousing great demands for security (Garland 2008, p.10). Moral panics vary greatly, in intensity, duration, as well as their perceived social impact; for instance, whereas some are minor, momentary incidents that eventually clear away leaving no clue behind, others are great, dilapidating events that leave long lasting fatalistic implications, thereby transforming the entire social landscape (Goode & Ben-Yehuda 2009, p.250). The issues that lead to the emergence of moral panics, when investigated further, may eventually turn out to be serious, trivial, or mere fantastic creations of the mind, but still, the manifest extent of the problem in most cases does not reflect the magnitude of the reaction it yields. Moral panics are also distinguishable based on their proximate causation and patterns of development; for instance, whereas moral panics can be sudden, local events that certain actors inadvertently propagate at the grass roots, they could also arise due to intentional manoeuvrings of certain actors for commercial purposes (Jewkes 2011, p.6). Nonetheless, the social reactions in the eventualities of these perceived panic-creating situations could either be more or less consensual as well as more or less divided but in Cohen’s seminal description, the guardians of society react in unison; the cause of moral panics also varies greatly depending on its focus, and numerous key factors have been isolated as risk factors. These include the presence of a lurid mass media, discovery of a new kind of deviance that has never been reported before, and the presence of side-lined, outsider groups, and most importantly, the existence of a well-informed public audience. In light of the original meaning of the concept of moral panics—before it became a rhetoric tool for denying or refuting alarming claims by certain groups of people in the society, it is indeed clear that moral concepts are indeed useful. In the conventional sense of the concept, moral panics serve a unique function in society, to raise public outrage towards a behaviour that breaks the set confines of norms that govern socially appropriate behaviour (Cromer 2004, p.67). Consequently, the responses of a section of members of the society towards a moral panic event should be able to prompt the deviant group to desist from the described behaviour or to accept the tainted labels imposed on them by society due to their deviance. In that case, the concept of moral panic is very useful in shaping behaviour in society, since by raising public outcry, moral campaigns contribute to the reformation of behaviour and enforcement of norms in social interactions within societies in general. Without the concept of moral panics, the emergence of a strange behaviour or event in society is likely to pass unnoticed even when it undermines the prevailing set of social norms, thereby becoming normalized in society and its participants achieving an acceptable identity. The usefulness of the concept of moral panics can be illustrated through the examination of notable deviant individuals such as rapists in societies; when cases of rape arise in any society, media reporting on such issues is bound to raise public outrage, which in turn will prompt the emergence of a moral panic (Welch, Price and Yankey 2002, p.3). Due to the ensuing moral panic, the deviant individuals (in this case the rapists) propagating the questionable behaviour (rape) will be rendered powerless effectively, thereby bowing to pressure from the moral campaigns and desisting from the deviant behaviour. Alternatively, the deviants are more likely to become “folk devils,” name given to individuals who destabilize social order, by adopting the tainted label imposed on them by society collectively due to the outraged moral campaigns and the moral panic that follows. Eventually, moral panics do perform a normative function of maintaining sanity in society and stemming out indecent and annoying behaviour accordingly; in our example above, the absence of moral panics is more likely to result to the pervasiveness of the deviant behaviour even though it undermines societal norms. Declining usefulness in the concept of moral panic In recent times, the scanty evidence of consensual social reactions coupled by the dominant oppositional voices in media and in the general public domain greatly undermines the significance of the concept of moral panics (Garland 2008, p.17). Traditionally, events that were described as “moral panics” elucidated a uniform public reaction through the cohesive and narrowly focused mass media establishment, but the existence of a ubiquitous and easily accessible mass media, alternative media platforms, and counter-claim critics have created sharp divisions in social reactions. In addition to the counter-claim critics who often refute alarmist arguments, there has been resurgence in activism, in defence of the so-called “folk devils,” thereby further diminishing unified social reaction and making consensual expressions of concern an unlikely phenomenon today. Clearly, the new developments have resulted to the gradual and profound shift in the nature of moral panics, thus the inevitable decline in the usefulness of the concept of moral panic over time. Evidently, it is increasingly becoming difficult to locate any single issue within the public conversations or discourse on which the public unanimously agrees upon without dissenting voices emerging. Notably, the concept of moral panic has also lost its usefulness since society today has increasingly become fragmented in its foundations or structures; for instance, it is not unusual today to find racial, religious, ideological, and even regional divisions in society today, due to the pervasiveness of identity politics the world over (Garland 2008, p.17). In that respect, the emergence of social or moral issues touching on the lives of individuals in society is more likely to excite highly polarized responses due to the apparent social fragmentation; the prevailing racial, religious, ideological, and regional divisions that arise from the effect of identity politics continuously ensure that opinions are never unified. The sharply polarized social responses to moral issues have completely undermined the usefulness of the concept of moral panic since it is no longer able to influence society as before, with the many dissent voices counteracting its impact on public reactions. Sadly, even the occasions during which moral panics do emerge in society are simply brushed away in the usual simplistic manner of abusing the concept of moral panic as a rhetoric tool for saying no to, or objecting to alarmist claims in society. The concept of moral panic has equally lost its usefulness because its pervasiveness has resulted to the establishment of cultural wars that do not reflect any meaningful cause of alarm in society, beyond the manifest battle of supremacy between moralists or the so-called guardians of morality in society (Mason 2003, p.2). In other words, the absence of consensual moral panics in society has inevitably paved way to the phenomenon of antagonistic cultural wars, with specific social groups engaging in what can be termed as “politics of morality,” which aim to redistribute social identities and status while reasserting the dominance of one way of live over the other accordingly. For instance, issues such as child abuse are indeed valid sources of moral panic, since they undermine or go against the grain of the established social values of any archetypical society; however, unified responses to such issues are not as common as the ensuing moral crusades, and cultural wars. Due to the pervasiveness of the apparent cultural wars, both the meaning and value of deviant behaviours such as child abuse in society generally tends to be highly contested with the struggling social groups remaining antagonistic to each other. Moral panic is supposed to result into a visible change in behaviour or at least instigate changes in the course of the emerging behaviours by arousing reactions that both condemn and urge for redress from the moral guardians in society. For instance, the outrage aroused in the event of a moral panic should be able to make the targets of that moral campaign exceedingly powerless thereby compelling them to either desist from their deviant behaviours or to take up the negative identities given to them by society (Garland 2008, p.17). However, the fact that the concept of moral panic has increasingly failed to impose any reasonable or meaningful changes in deviance in societies today implies that it is no longer useful as it used to be in the past. Interestingly, the would-have been folk devils according to the earlier conceptualization of the concept today end up either resisting the tainted identities imposed on them by moral campaigns while carrying on with their deviant behaviours unperturbed by the apparent social outrage in the society. Additionally, the concept of moral panic has totally lost its usefulness, especially because in practical terms today, the social outrage expressed by a section of society only does achieve the opposite of the intended outcomes rather than creating or starting a moral panic in the large society. For instance, instead of raising a moral panic in society, the public outrage expressed by a section of members of the society often prompts a defiant attitude from the targets of the section’s moral campaign. Ironically, the defiant response that normally emerges from the supposedly deviant group that should be folk devils is often as outraged as the response of the section of moral campaigners in society (Garland 2008, p.17). In that respect, the deviant groups do not become folk devils in the conventional sense of the concept of moral panic, and instead, they defy the negative tainted labels imposed on them by society by taking up normalized identities. In this case, there is no doubt that the concept of moral panic cannot remain relevant in the present societies if it can no longer serve its primary functions as conceptualized by Cohen in his seminal work of folk devils and moral panic. Nevertheless, the pervasiveness of the concept of moral panic has inevitably contributed to the apparent decline in its usefulness in society today, especially because its processes have become so familiar that individuals in society have increasingly become more self-conscious as well as purposeful than ever before. Presently, the manner in which the mass media handles moral panics has become a traceable trend that is highly predictable since the rules of playing have been revealed to individuals in society (Cohen, 2011); consequently, different factions of society often lean on different sides of arguments depending on their interests in varying contexts. Some of the crucial issues that initially arose as moral panics but were quickly downplayed as mere politically contested cultural wars include same-sex relationships and the issue of gay marriage, as well as the issue of illegal immigrants and the wearing of hijab in schools. In that respect, the continued decline in the usefulness of the concept of moral panics can be linked to the normative evolution of deviance behaviours alongside the resultant shift in the status of deviants, as well as the pervasiveness of media and political fragmentation. Conclusion Ultimately, it is clear that the concept of moral panic has completely lost its usefulness today, particularly due to a number of factors including the pervasiveness of the concept in popular culture and discourses, as a rhetoric tool for refuting alarming claims, rather than a genuine expression of public outrage on serious societal issues or moral problems. Additionally, instead of becoming “folk devils,” by adopting the tainted labels imposed on them or stopping their deviant behaviours altogether, the targets of moral campaigns are more likely to resist moral outrage by reacting in equal outrage thereby normalizing their deviant behaviours. Furthermore, the concept has lost its usefulness due to the pervasiveness of the apparent cultural wars, which tend to yield contentious understandings of both the meaning and value of deviant behaviours in society, as the struggling social groups remain antagonistic to each other. Overall, the scanty evidence of consensual social reactions coupled by the dominant oppositional voices in media and in the general public domain greatly undermines the significance of the concept of moral panics today; consequently, it is indeed an undeniable fact that the concept of moral panic is no longer relevant today since it has lost its conventional usefulness. References Garland, D., 2008. On the concept of moral panic. Crime, Media, Culture 4(1), 9-30 Jewkes, Y., 2011. Media & crime. (2nd ed). London: Sage Publishing. Mason, P., 2003. Criminal visions: Media representations of crime and justice. Cullompton: Willan Publishing. Cromer, G., 2004. Children from good homes: Moral panics about middle class delinquency. British Journal of criminology, 44(3), 391-400 Welch, M., E.A. Price and N. Yankey. 2002. Moral panic over youth violence: Wilding and the manufacture of menace in the media. Youth and society, 34(1), 3-30 Wykes, M. 2000. News, Crime, and Culture. London: Pluto press. Critcher, C., 2003. Moral panics and the media. Buckingham: Open UP. Goode, E. & Ben-Yehuda, N. 2009. Moral panics the social construction of deviance. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Cohen, S., 2011. Folk devils and moral panics the creation of the mods and rockers. 3rd ed. London: Routledge. Reiner, R. 2007. Media made criminality: The representations of crime in the mass media. Maguire (ed). The oxford handbook of criminology, 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, pp.302-337. Read More