Stan Cohen went around the village to see what the people that lived there had thought of the first fight, and one of the shop owners said that the fight wasn’t even that big, and if the media hadn’t reported it, then they wouldn’t have even reported the fight to the police.
The second bank holiday, the media were swarming all over the small seaside village, trying to induce fights, so that they could write about it. They asked people if they didn’t want to join in the brawls down the road, to try and get them to fight. The fights that weekend were not even that big, but because the media exaggerated it, then everyone thought that it was ten times worse than it actually was. The mods and rockers were actually quite nice people, helping each other out, if their bikes and scooters had broken, and this media coverage gave them a bad name, the media stigmatized it. The media also kept the panic going for a long time, making children in society drawn to believe it. Another way that the media dramatised this was that the police that spoke to the media gave over-exaggerated statements, which worried the public even more.
Moral Panics historicise youth cultures, which makes people always remember them. The mods were not even a proper youth culture, there is no origin for them, and they just got labelled. Stan Cohen describes the terms moral, as things that happen within society, and panic, as something that becomes a large concern.
An example of a more recent moral panic that Sarah Thornton studied was that of the acid house parties in Britain. Sarah Thornton actually arrived to study moral panics, and as she arrived there were newspaper reports that there had been lots of acid house parties happening. Police constables had been hurt, and had retrieved two dustbins full of drugs at one of these parties, and the owners of the parties had been put in jail.
The Sun had reported that on the back of an acid house CD that was on the market at that time, which predicted that there would be a moral panic about the music and what people do with it. So in a way, this could be seen as a self fulfilling prophecy.
There was very sensational reporting around the topic of acid house music, making people very aware of what apparently went on in these clubs. Firstly, the tabloid newspapers were quite positive of what was going on, with some newspapers even printing what you were meant to wear to go to these clubs, but soon, they began printing negative reports about acid house parties.
As Stan Cohen’s model (as seen above) suggests, the authorities reacted to this, and passed the Criminal Justice Act 1994. This banned the acid house parties, which infuriated the younger generation, as they didn’t think that what they were doing was very dangerous, or that it affected anyone else. There were protests all over London, and 10 people were arrested. There were lots of injuries that weekend, as people danced to acid house music all over London, and outside Downing Street gates.
Acid house became the mainstream of the dance culture. Its music was played on Radio 1, and top of the pops, were children were open to this. People thought that it was a straight forward youth culture. Until drugs were brought into it.
Media coverage looked at a girl that was put into hospital because of taking an ecstasy tablet at her 18th birthday party. Her parents appealed on television for the drug pusher to come forward, and for children not to take the drug. There was exaggerated media coverage of every hospitalised teen that had taken the drug, and calls for strict action to be taken. Leah Betts, the girl that had taken the tablet, pictures were splashed all over the front pages of the newspapers to serve as a warning to people that were thinking about taking the drug, but this was great for the sales of newspapers, with such great pictures to focus on. It was such a dramatic picture, showing Leah Betts on her death bed. Leah Betts was young, white and pretty, fitting the bill for media exaggeration. It was such a loss, because she was all of these things, and the media circled in on these facts.
After the case was tried, it came out that Leah Betts had taken the tablet at her birthday party, of her own free will. The tablet was pure, there was nothing wrong with the tablet itself, and Leah had taken the drug before. After a post mortem, it was revealed that Leah had died as a result of taking the tablet, and drinking too much water afterwards. It was a catch 22, as the tablet makes you very thirsty, and so you drink water, but then if you drink too much water, then it could have very severe effects. The judge said that the only person responsible for Leah’s tragic death was Leah herself, and that he was very sad that this had happened. Leah, in this case, was used as a folk devil, a term that Stan Cohen had used to describe someone that the media used as a scape goat, really, that the reporting really was a result of her death. Her parents then set out to try and prevent this from happening again, which provided more media coverage. They tried lots of different approaches, and the media exaggerated all of them. The fact remains that the case of Leah Betts, popularised drug taking.
Sarah Thornton saw this, through the media making a moral panic about this. The media saw that there was a problem, with drug taking, and simplified the problem, by saying that drugs and acid house were totally to blame for Leah’s death, and it was stigmatised, and the media campaigned for action. A typical Moral Panic.
