Moral Panic and media folk devils.

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Moral Panic and media folk devils.

  • Introduction

In this study I will first define what a moral panic is, then I will use previous studies from independent sources to find previous opinions and ideas and also what moral panics we have had (and are in the middle of) from the post war period onwards to present day. After this I will conduct my own study on the subject.

        

  • Hypothesis.

My hypothesis for my study is that most people will agree that moral panics and folk devils are based mostly on rumours and fear influenced by the media. I believe this as many of the previous moral panics are now perfectly acceptable, and also due to media influence linking real life tragedies to other media as a scapegoat, such as shootings in America being influenced by computer games. Also I think that older people will be more concerned with moral panics than the younger generation as they have greater exposure to media, have a lesser interest in the subjects which start panics and have younger relatives and children.

        

  • Definition.

The phrase moral panic can be defined as The Chambers Dictionary moral panic: the idea that 'a condition, episode, person or group of persons' (Cohen 1972) becomes defined as a threat to 'societal; values and interests'

        

This can be simplified and explained as: When the media or government uses scapegoats to pass on the blame to a minority group or sub-culture to maintain popularity, these people blamed are known as folk devils and are often blamed for all the woes of modern society.

        

To find more on this I will use six key questions on the topic that I will use secondary data to answer. After this I will use primary data in the form of questionnaires and interviews to further prove my theory.

  • Rationale

I have chosen the subject of moral panic as the media has great influence in sociology, the media also interests me and how it affects society. I am also interested in social class and how social class has affect on different aspects of society. As a part of a working class family I want to see how other people who are in the same area are affected by these subjects in comparison to myself. I do not think my situation will be common as I do not watch much television or read newspapers and will not have great exposure to the media. My belief is that most people in a working class society will have great exposure to media because of the culture that they surround themselves with television and radio (both having news reports) and read tabloid newspapers which start most moral panics.

  • Secondary Data.

Since the end of the war there have been five major moral panics,

  • Comic books,
  • Rock and roll
  • Dungeons and dragons,
  • Violent films and T.V. programmes,
  • Computer games and the Internet.

Of these five, two still cause major panic and one more has since evolved into a new culture and has yet again produced panic. Computer games and violent television programmes are blamed for causing anti social behaviour in children, along with this new rock music and heavy metal (which was spawned from the old rock and roll) has caused panics. These originated in the religious community with claims of Satanism and themes of murder and violent crimes in the lyrics; the main culprit for this is Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner). dynamic and seen as perfectly

        

Post war moral panic started when comics were released, they introduced children to violence in the form of comics, and they were said to make children believe war and murder were all right and you could only kill bad people. These rumours had no evidence to back this up and no scientific research to determine the effects of comics on children. Originally comics were not harmless and were only found in newspapers, the panic came during a wave of “stand alone” comics which introduced themes of war and Japanese comics which were sexually orientated. However in Japan these comics which they provided were seen as socially acceptable and were produced for both teenage and adult audiences. The comic panic was soon calmed as new things were introduced and as they became more popular they became socially acceptable.

        

Rock and Roll has spawned many new music forms and cultures since it was originally introduced in the 1950s. The original rock and roll caused panic as it started a teenage youth culture and encouraged different behaviour to what was normally acceptable, also even though the music was not harmful in itself; the followers of the new culture began to fight amongst themselves and started habits such as smoking and drinking alcohol. The new ways in which teenagers were beginning to live (moving away from family activities to their peer groups) caused panic in the parents of the children. The craze seemed like a cult that their children relentlessly followed.

        

Rock and Roll spawned different music style such as Metal and Heavy Metal which have themselves spawned into new music types. These began with bands such as Black Sabbath that began to use lyrics that were said to be based on satanic rituals. The new form of Heavy Metal known generally as

Nu-Metal use lyrics based on violence and violent crimes with artists such as Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner) taking the lead in the new craze with morbid lyrics based around his “supposed life”.  

        

Dungeons and Dragons are based on a fantastical world containing a variety of creatures ranging from trolls and Orcs to dragons and Griffins. This genre of fantasy has consistently caused panic and moved to books in the form of Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling that many religious groups considered satanic due to the witchcraft and wizardry involved in it. This is untrue though and all due to speculation as witchcraft is based on religion whose beliefs are based around nature. These speculations o fantasy are that many play the games too often and the gamers are unable to differentiate fantasy and reality. These allegations also claimed this lack of reality also affected the gamers morals meaning what seems to be acceptable during the game, which are not acceptable in modern society, seems perfectly harmless to the gamer in the real world as he sees it as normal as he can not tell the difference in fantasy and reality.

        

Violent television and videos are said to be responsible for anti-social behaviour in children. The violent images incorporated in these films are said to make the child tempted into trying the events in the films in real life, the more the films are watched the greater the urge to copy becomes. The film Child’s Play 3 was blamed for influencing the two child murderers of Jamie Bulge. The national tabloid The Sun condemned the film and publicly destroyed copies of the video, this was ironic however as the owner of the newspaper also owns the televisions company Fox who showed the film three nights previously.

        

Another recent event like this was over computer games, this panic was first linked with the Television argument, later however a Japanese scientist claimed that his research had shown that playing any game, not only violent games, had an effect on the brain causing antisocial behaviour. Prince Charles publicly condemned computer gaming asking for funding in a campaign against it during the recent panic. However it appears the panic has no sense and careful consideration as the computer games industry is the fastest growing industry in Britain and any ban on computer games would have serious repercussions on the country’s economy.

        

The Internet is another computer-related panic and has been blamed for supporting unsuitable and immoral material. The Internet has been blamed for the increase in pornography and child pornography as well as the increased popularity in cults and satanic cults and witchcraft. It has been brought about that children who have a free run of the Internet have great exposure to this and are negatively affected by it.

        

        

Using the information from the secondary sources above I will answer my six key questions on the subject of Moral Panics. My questions are:

  • Are moral panics based mostly on facts or rumour?
  • How does violence in computers and on T.V. affect it?
  • How does the influence of music and books affect it?
  • How does social class affect it?
  • What effects does the media have on them?
  • What effect does it have on the people it is aimed at?

  • Are moral panics based on facts or rumours?

 Of the studies on the five case studies of moral panics, the only fact based scientifically proven study was the Japanese study of computer and interactive games. This study said that the part of the brain used to play computer games also caused anti-social behaviour in people.

The other studies used case studies such as that heavy metal is a bad influence because it has turned out people like Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner) who act strangely and do not conform to normal behaviour in society. This said it is true minorities of people who listen to heavy metal do idolise and copy artists such as Manson. It can also be shown many of the people who follow the music do not idolise or copy and could not be told apart from other “normal” people. It could also be true people listen to this music because they don’t wish to conform and are making a statement they already believe to be true. During the 1970s it was said that if you played a certain Black Sabbath heavy metal album backwards it would reveal a satanic ritual which you could perform. This was not the case and the claim was ridiculous as even if it were true it was unlikely you would play the disc backwards anyway. This has now changed to the idea of heavy metal bands using lyrics about self-harming and depression causing teenagers to act out like the lyrics suggest.

        

As far as books are concerned reading books with witch craft and wizardry to children or allowing them to read them can’t be scientifically proved to cause harm. These books, particularly Harry Potter, are extremely popular and read by millions have not led to masses of children turning to witch craft. It is however true that in years before and still today that many people follow the pagan way of life as the druid priests did. This religion based on ancient witchcraft is in no way linked directly to the sort of occult and magic in books but revolves around the ancient practice of worshipping nature. Claims these books encourage satanic rituals is also wrong as Satan is a Christian being and not featured in the religion known to witchcraft.  

        

The idea that violence in computer games and T.V. causing violent outbursts is not linked to the Japanese study. The study showed any game could cause different behaviour but the violence has not been proved dangerous in any way. The studies have not found conclusive evidence but have found that if the subject did not have a firm grasp of reality it could cause them to think they were in a game. If a person has a good grasp of reality it should not cause them problems, as they would be able to judge a situation using common sense.        

        

A final reason pointing to the fact they are based on rumour is that they do not last. Rock and roll has only caused panic constantly because it has changed since its birth, comics are deemed socially acceptable and the war against computer games has begun to die down. Also it has been suggested that age restrictions on films be scrapped in favour of asking parental permission instead. This would lead to more children seeing increasingly violent films.

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  • The role of T.V. and computer game violence in causing moral panic?

T.V. and computer games have caused panic during the last few years after shootings involving children in America. The child responsible for killing many of his classmates had been playing violent games like Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto was slated by the media because it encouraged players to take part in violent crimes, mostly murder, and for this they were given points. They claimed that this would make children think that these crimes were acceptable and good. However the media’s case was ...

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