Moral panic,moral regulation,and the civilizing process

This article compares two analytical frameworks ostensibly formulated to widen the focus of moral panic studies. The comparative analysis suggests that attempts to conceptualize moral panics in terms of decivilizing processes have neither substantively supplemented the explanatory gains made by conceptualizing moral panic as a form of moral regulation nor provided a viable alternative framework that better explains the dynamics of contemporary moral panics. The article concludes that Elias's meta‐theory of the civilizing process potentially provides explanatory resources to investigate a possible historical‐structural shift towards the so‐called age of (a)moral panic; the analytical demands of such a project, however, require a sufficiently different line of inquiry than the one encouraged by both the regulatory and decivilizing perspectives on moral panic.     

Moral panic,moral regulation and essentialization of identities: Discursive struggle over unethical business practices in the Finnish national media

The study sheds light on the language of moral panic and moral regulation in the Finnish news media over a 9-year period on the subject of cartels and cartel agreements. What makes the case particularly interesting is that the object of the most explicit moral panic was the introduction of new laws (leniency programmes) designed to regulate illegal cartel behaviour. The main argument is that the construction of both moral regulation and moral panic in news media takes place through essentializing discursive claims that contribute to national identity construction. The study contributes to current literature on moral panics as ideologico-discursive phenomena and throws some light on the power-laden discursive processes that work to reconstruct, essentialize and stabilize identities. In addition, there are some suggestions as to why some moral panics fail to develop.     

THE SOCIOLOGY OF MORAL PANICS: TOWARD A NEW SYNTHESIS

There are two alternative theoretical perspectives developed in the sociological study of a moral panic: the moral perspective and the interest perspective. Using as illustration a May 1982 national moral panic about drugs that occurred in Israel, this article argues that both perspectives must be used and integrated into one coherent model for a better and fuller sociological explanation of moral panics. The article provides a detailed account of the Israeli panic and an analysis clustered along two axes. One axis uses the interest perspective to analyze the timing of the panic by focusing on the question of why it happened when it did. The other axis uses the moral perspective to interpret the specific content of the panic, focusing on why the panic was about drugs.     

Standing up to complexity: researching moral panics in social work

Moral panics are central to social work policy and practice. Voluntary agencies and statutory bodies (including governments) create and sustain moral panics in order to raise awareness of, and win support for, their own understandings of social issues and problems. This is not a neutral enterprise; on the contrary, moral panics often have consequences that are negative, whether intended or unintended. Far from leading to greater social justice and a more equal society, they may reinforce stereotypes and lead to fearful, risk-averse practice. This paper discusses one such moral panic in 2013 that centred on the story of ‘Maria’, a Bulgarian Roma child living in Greece. The paper explores the meaning and use of the concept of moral panic before unpacking this case-study example in more detail. We argue that the moral panic over ‘Maria’ has much to tell us about ideas of welfare and protection, institutional racism and children and childhood, as well as the connections between ‘private troubles’ and ‘public issues’. We conclude that social work as a profession must stand up to complexity, and in doing so, be aware of its own role in relation to moral panics.     

Moral panic versus the risk society: the implications of the changing sites of social anxiety

This paper compares moral panic with the potential political catastrophes of a risk society. The aim of the comparison is threefold: 1. to establish the position of risk society threats alongside more conventional moral panics; 2. to examine the conceptual shifts that accompany the new types of threats; and 3. to outline the changing research agenda. The paper suggests that as new sites of social anxiety have emerged around environmental, nuclear, chemical and medical threats, the questions motivating moral panic research have lost much of their utility. Conceptually, it examines how the roulette dynamics of the risk society accidents expose hidden institutional violations that redound into 'hot potatoes' that are passed among and fumbled by various actors. Changing conceptions of folk devils, claims making activities, and of a safety are also discussed.     

The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic: A Sociological Analysis

A new type of sex crime was discovered in the United States in the 1980s – the sexual abuse of young children in ghastly rituals performed by devil worshippers who happened to be their day care providers. ‘Ritual abuse’, as this new sex crime came to be termed, appeared to be epidemic during that decade; hundreds of day care centers were investigated and scores of providers were arrested and prosecuted. This article asserts that the day care ritual abuse scare was a moral panic, in fact, the ‘purest example’ of a moral panic in that the putative threat to children had to be wholly constructed. Using the key sociological elements set out by Cohen (1972/2002), this article analyzes the day care ritual abuse moral panic and concludes by discussing additional key elements that will facilitate future sociological analyses of moral panics.     

Risk and panic in late modernity: implications of the converging sites of social anxiety

Comparing moral panic with the potential catastrophes of the risk society, Sheldon Ungar contends that new sites of social anxiety emerging around nuclear, medical, environmental and chemical threats have thrown into relief many of the questions motivating moral panic research agendas. He argues that shifting sites of social anxiety necessitate a rethinking of theoretical, methodological and conceptual issues related to processes of social control, claims making and general perceptions of public safety. This paper charts an alternative trajectory, asserting that analytic priority rests not with an understanding of the implications of changing but converging sites of social anxiety. Concentrating on the converging sites of social anxiety in late modernity, the analysis forecasts a proliferation of moral panics as an exaggerated symptom of the heightened sense of uncertainty purported to accompany the ascendency of the risk society.     

Moral Panics and Urban Growth Machines: Official Reactions to Graffiti in New York City, 1990–2005

This paper analyzes the official response to graffiti writing in New York City throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. Drawing from a variety of documents, such as newspaper articles, political press releases, internal memos and government reports, I show that the city’s reaction to graffiti constitutes a moral panic and that the significance of this response can be discerned when interpreted in the context of theoretical insights developed by urban sociologists. On this basis, I argue that moral panics, or at least a sub-set of panics, may be central to negotiating the social conflict that accompanies the ways in which (urban) space will be put to use.     

A Hybrid Model of Moral Panics: Synthesizing the Theory and Practice of Moral Panic Research

We seek to address criticisms of the concept of moral panics (MPs) by offering a hybrid model of MPs that synthesizes theory and practice of MPs research. A review of the literature on MPs from sociology, media studies and related fields shows a wide variety of usage and lack of conceptual clarity of the term ‘moral panic’. Yet there are few articles explaining how to analyze MPs. We present a theoretical clarification of MPs by addressing elements of scope, intensity and reception, to create distinction from other related theoretical concepts. To develop a working method for researching MPs, one must have an understanding of social conditions that give rise to, sustain and result in the success or failure of MPs, as well as possible lasting effects. We synthesize Cohen’s process-oriented model of MPs and Goode & Ben-Yehuda’s attribution-oriented model of MPs, creating a critical hybrid model of MPs that integrates processes and attributes. We then utilize the hybrid model to offer practical suggestions for researching and analyzing the conditions, processes and effects of MPs, in the hopes of encouraging a more rigorous research agenda for scholars of MPs.     

Drinking places: Young people and cultures of alcohol consumption in rural environments

This paper focuses on the contemporary British moral panic about young people and the consumption of alcohol in public space. Most of this public debate has focused on binge drinking in urban areas as a social problem. Here, we consider instead the role of alcohol in rural communities, and in particular alcohol consumption in domestic and informal spaces, as well as the formal drinking landscape of pubs and bars. Drawing on empirical work (including a survey, interviews and participant observation) in rural Cumbria, UK we explore the specific socio-spatial nature of local attitudes to alcohol consumption and its regulation. In doing so, we reflect on the nature of rural lifestyles, community spaces and intergenerational relations. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the implications for health promotion professionals of the generally positive attitude towards young people's drinking in the rural area where the research was conducted. It also draws attention to the need for academics to pay closer attention to the ways that moral panics about binge drinking are implicitly producing a monolithic image of alcohol consumption in urban areas that fails to acknowledge the socio-spatially differentiated nature of practices of alcohol consumption and regulation.     

Online ghettoes,perils or supernannies? Australian young people with chronic illness and disability challenge some moral panics about young people online

Current literature focusing on young people’s digital technology use often reflects concerns that they may live virtual lives and withdraw from locally geographically situated spaces. It assumes the existence of a split between offline and online ‘worlds’ corresponding to ‘real ‘and ‘non-real’ respectively. This article reports research findings on how young people locate new social media technologies in their daily lives with particular focus on the relationship between their online and offline experiences. The voices of the young people guided the research, which found that their social media use contradicts conventional narratives of moral panic about the alleged unreality and fearful dangers of online spaces for young people.     

A Short Psychosocial History of British Child Abuse and Protection: Case Studies in Problems of Mourning in the Public Sphere

This paper offers a historical and psychosocial account of ‘moral panics’ about child maltreatment in England over the last four decades, and proposes this perspective as additional to Munro's more systemic account of the same history. The formal child protection system is theorised in terms of an explicit and a covert dual primary task. The overt task is to actually protect vulnerable children and prevent abuse; the covert task is to protect the remainder of society from exposure to anxiety provoking ‘dangerous knowledge’ about the prevalence of child maltreatment. Episodes of public and political moral panic occur when the boundaries of containment provided by the official system and its processes are breached, propelling debate and contestation about child maltreatment into the public sphere, where public enquiries and other social mechanisms are called upon to ‘settle’ the contested issues. Sometimes these social settlements appear to be successful in resolving conflicts about the reality or otherwise of specific forms of abuse; in other cases, especially child deaths, the controversial and anxiety-laden nature of the problem is recurrently projected back into the public domain. The paper suggests that this may be associated with a difficulty about establishing a secure symbolic framework or discourse in society for the emotionally indigestible facts of child torture and murder. In turn, this may be associated with problems about the decline of public mourning rituals and the failure of the public enquiry format to facilitate this. In line with Munro, the paper argues for the importance of a tragic perspective on child maltreatment, to counter idealisations of the capacity of the formal system to protect children.     

Media, ‘Fat Panic’ and Public Pedagogy: Mapping Contested Terrain

Discourses regarding a ‘global obesity crisis’ and alternative frames (e.g. weight‐inclusive approaches to health) have proliferated through various media of communication. These media range from traditional print and visual formats (e.g. newspapers and television shows) to digital media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), which enable different publics to produce, and not just consume, text, images and other data relating to the body. Reflecting a sociological understanding of educational practices as extending beyond formal schooling, mediated obesity discourse and counter‐movements have also been conceptualised as public pedagogies, which instruct people how to relate to their own and other's bodies, health and subjectivities. This article examines what is critically known about various media at a time when governments and agencies are reinvigorating the global war on obesity, with populations being ‘advised’ to become and remain conscientious weight watchers. In conclusion, the article underscores the salience of social studies of the media when seeking to rethink obesity, incorporating critical reference to moral panic theory and the need to better understand what media can ‘do’ as enactments of public pedagogy.     

Trying to Comfort the Parent: A Qualitative Study of Children Dealing With Parental Depression

In this article, we look at children’s experiences of parentification in families in which one of the parents is hospitalized for depression. Children (7–14 years old) and their parents were invited for a family interview. Using thematic analysis, we constructed a general framework of 14 children’s experiences, guided by the explorative research question: How do children experience parental depression and how do they experience their own caregiving in the family? The thematic analysis revealed eight themes. One of these themes (trying to comfort the parent) was selected for a microanalysis in one family interview. Our study illustrates the process of overt negotiating of caretaking between parent and child with an underlying moral dilemma and related emotions. The dynamic of children hiding their worry can be seen as an answer to the parent’s expressed wish to not burden her children. These dynamics are situated in ongoing debates in family therapy literature, and some suggestions for therapeutic practice are formulated.     

Tightening the focus: moral panic, moral regulation and liberal government

The purpose of this article is to tighten the focus of moral panic studies by clarifying and elaborating on an analytical framework that conceptualizes moral panic as a form of moral regulation. The first part of the article explains why moral panic should be conceptualized as a form of moral regulation. The second part presents a rejoinder to Critcher's (2009) critique of the widening focus of moral panic studies. The third part elaborates on the conceptual relationship between the sociologies of moral panic and moral regulation by offering fresh insights into the sociological and political importance of moral panic as a technique of liberal government.     

MORAL PANICS, THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, AND THE ARMS RACE

This study argues that the generalized fear of the Soviet threat was punctuated by moral panics that provided a signal impetus to the arms race. The growth of the American nuclear arsenal came in three large waves (the Truman. the Eisenhower/Kennedy/McNamara, and the Reagan buildups), the result of panics unleashed by startling and spectacular Soviet challenges to American nuclear hegemony (the Soviet atomic bomb, the Sputnik/Cuban missile crisis, and the window of vulnerability, respectively). The initial panics were instrumental in overcoming the fiscal constraints imposed on the military by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, creating conditions conducive to the ascendency of a military-industrial complex. More specifically, the timing of the panics was determined by authentic surges of fear that in turn provided the political leverage for large-scale nuclear buildups. The direction taken by the panics, however, was determined by the creation and dramatization of an elective affinity between nuclear supremacy and both national security and the sanctity of the American way of life. In contrast with these panics, most efforts to mobilize fear by creating the perception of gaps in the Soviet favor failed.     

FROM JUKE BOX BOYS TO BOBBY SOX BRIGADE

Through its analysis of the complex discursive struggle over Times Square's – and later America's – ‘bobby sox brigade’, this article reintroduces young women into historical and theoretical accounts of youth culture. In doing so it challenges subculture and moral panic theories for their over-emphasis on working-class masculinity and their inability to account for the complexity and localized specificity – both historical and geographic – that such case studies command. The bobby soxer and the conflicting debates she engendered must be understood as a product of wartime contingency and in relation to the contested discourses within and between different localized contexts and media forms; the bobby soxer was simultaneously positioned as the key problem of wartime and promise of the post-war prosperity ahead. This article ultimately proposes a theoretical framework focusing on localized and contested terrains of discourse, appropriate to (sub)cultural activity in times of war and other disruptions.     

When a scratch becomes 'a scary story': the social construction of micro panics in center-based child care

This study analyzes the everyday world of center‐based child care and the climate of suspicion that permeates that world. Based on four and a half years of participant observation field research and thirty focused interviews with men and women child care workers, the author examines the existence of ‘micro panics’ which occur in child care centers when deviant labels are attached to caregiving acts or activities. Drawing from traditional Moral Panic Theory, this paper demonstrates how the context of suspicion surrounding center based child care and the ‘micro panics’ that sustain it are generated historically, structurally, and interactionally. These phenomena, in other words, are in part, a historical artifact from the 1980s moral panics concerning day care abuse, an interactional product of the gendering of child care as ‘women's work’, and a phenomenological byproduct of the positioning of paid child care in the everyday lives of workers, children, and parents.     

Bad Sports: Explaining Sport Related Deviance

While sometimes dismissed as an unimportant subject for analysis, the study of sport has offered important insights into our social world. Yet the academic study of sport‐related deviance has not kept pace with the explosion of popular media products regarding deviance in sport over the past four decades. This can be explained in part by the sheer diversity of sport related deviance which defies applying a singular theoretical explanation. A number of approaches from the sociology of sport and other social sciences offer useful ways of making sense of sport related rule‐breaking while also providing valuable insights into larger questions regarding crime and deviance. This paper reviews three contemporary perspectives used in the study of sport deviance: deviant overconformity, moral panics and consumptive deviance. Drawing from exemplary studies of performance‐enhancing drug use, hooligan violence, and sport celebrity scandals, I highlight the ways in which these perspectives offer a “sociological corrective” to media misrepresentations as well as insights that extend beyond sport and into contemporary social issues including race and gender relations, economic inequalities, crime, youth violence, and celebrity culture. I conclude by addressing new developments and avenues for future research.