scholarly journals The Sorcerer as Folk Devil in Contemporary Melanesia

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-61
Author(s):  
Tom Bratrud
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Similar Role ◽  
Revival Movement ◽  
Dreams And Visions

This chapter ethnographically explores a Christian revival movement in Vanuatu led by children. Examining events surrounding the hanging of two adults accused of sorcery, the text challenges the assumption that moral panics are only created with the assistance of mass media. Instead, the chapter shows that they also arise in contexts where gossip, dreams and visions play a similar role in both defining social problems and moral panic.

Moral Panics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chas Critcher
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Street Crime ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Culture Of Fear ◽  
Youth Subcultures

The concept of moral panic was first developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s, principally by Stan Cohen, initially for the purpose of analyzing the definition of and social reaction to youth subcultures as a social problem. Cohen provided a “processual” model of how any new social problem would develop: who would promote it and why, whose support they would need for their definition to take hold, and the often-crucial role played by the mass media and institutions of social control. In the early 1990s, Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda produced an “attributional” model that placed more emphasis on strict definition than cultural processes. The two models have subsequently been applied to a range of putative social problems which now can be recognized as falling into five principal clusters: street crime, drug and alcohol consumption, immigration, child abuse (including pedophilia), and media technologies. Most studies have been conducted in Anglophone and European countries, but gradually, the concept is increasing its geographical reach. As a consequence, we now know a good deal about how and why social problems come to be constructed as moral panics in democratic societies. This approach has nevertheless been criticized for its casual use of language, denial of agency to those promoting and supporting moral panics, and an oversimplified and outdated view of mass media, among other things. As proponents and opponents of moral panic analysis continue to debate the essentials, the theoretical context has shifted dramatically. Moral panic has an uncertain relationship to many recent developments in sociological and criminological thought. It threatens to be overwhelmed or sidelined by new insights from theories of moral regulation or risk, conceptualizations of the culture of fear, or the social psychology of collective emotion. Yet as an interdisciplinary project, it continues, despite its many flaws, to demand sustained attention from analysts of social problem construction.

Reinvestigating the London ‘Hooligan’ Panic of 1898*

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Davies
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Medical Officer ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
First Time

Abstract This article examines the agency of a group previously neglected by historians: the so-called ‘folk devils’ of historical moral panics. Orthodox studies of moral panics foreground the role of the mass media in creating folk devils, along with the responses of agents such as the police and the courts. This article takes a different approach, by examining the lived experience of folk devils themselves. It focuses on the London ‘Hooligan’ scare of 1898. Using the example of John D’Arcy, an eighteen-year-old from South London, who came to embody the Hooligan threat following his conviction for murder, it explores how a prominent folk devil and his family sought to negotiate, and refute, his demonisation by a sensation-hungry press. Two letters written by D’Arcy in prison enable us to give voice to a Hooligan for the first time. These demonstrate D’Arcy’s understanding of, and his attempt to refute, his demonisation, and his subsequent representation of himself as a humble, pious penitent. This study offers a new perspective on the class dynamics of late Victorian society, by showing how the D’Arcys, in alliance with the prominent prison visitor Katharine Parr, Irish Nationalist MPs and the medical officer at Parkhurst convict prison, effectively mobilised the rhetoric of moral reformation as they strove to free John from the stigma attached to him during an episode of moral panic.

scholarly journals US Moral Panics, Mexican Politics, and the Borderlands Origins of the War on Drugs, 1950–62

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-387
Author(s):  
Benjamin T. Smith ◽  
Wil G. Pansters
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Temporary Closure ◽  
Mexican Politics

During the 1950s Californian civil society advocates and politicians developed a moral panic over youth narcotic use. One of the key elements of this moral panic was the assertion that most drugs came over the border and that the only solution to this problem was blackmailing Mexico through temporary closure of the border. The idea not only became a tenet of later drug policy, but also, in conjunction with pressure from Mexico’s own moral reformers, forced regional politicians in Mexico to enact periodic clean up campaigns.

scholarly journals ‘Do We Look like Boy Racers?’ The Role of the Folk Devil in Contemporary Moral Panics

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Lumsden
Keyword(s):  
Moral Panic ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Young Drivers ◽  
The Media ◽  
Collective Process ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Societal Reaction

This article addresses the failure of studies concerning moral panics to take into account the reaction of those individuals who are the subject of social anxiety. It responds to the suggestion by McRobbie and Thornton (1995) that studies of moral panic need to account for the role played by the ‘folk devils’ themselves, for a moral panic is a collective process (Young, 2007). The paper presents findings from ethnographic fieldwork with the ‘boy racer’ culture in Aberdeen, qualitative interviews with members of outside groups, and content analysis of media articles. The societal reaction to the ‘boy racer’ subculture in Aberdeen is evidence of a contemporary moral panic. The media's representation of the subculture contributed to the stigmatization of young drivers and the labelling of the subculture's activities as deviant and antisocial. The drivers were aware of their negative portrayal in the media; however their attempts to change the myth of the ‘boy racer’ were unsuccessful. Although subcultural media can provide an outlet of self-expression for youths, these forms of media can also become caught-up in the moral panic. Ironically the youths’ own niche and micro media reified the (ir)rationality for the moral panic.

Moral Panic and Social Justice: A Guide for Analyzing Social Problems

Social Work ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Eversman ◽  
Jason D. P. Bird
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Moral Panic

scholarly journals Cannabis, Moral Entrepreneurship, and Stigma: Conflicting Narratives on the 26 May 2016 Toronto Police Raid on Cannabis Shops

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-171
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Müller
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social World ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
The Media ◽  
Police Raid ◽  
Do So

On May 26, 2016, the police raided 43 cannabis dispensaries in Toronto, Canada, making 90 arrests. This article aims to describe the narrative of the responsible state agencies concerning the police raid and compare it to the narrative of those who opposed it, such as activists, as well as consumers and sellers of cannabis. While such concepts as moral entrepreneur, moral panic, and moral crusade have traditionally been used to study those in power, I will employ them to explore both the state narrative and ways in which counterclaims-makers resisted it. In order to do so, I will further develop the concept of moral entrepreneurship and its characteristics by relating it to studies of moral panics and social problems. This article will be guided by the following question: How did each party socially construct its cannabis narrative, and in what way can we use the concept of moral entrepreneurship to describe and analyze these narratives as social constructions? I have investigated the media coverage of the raid and ethnographically studied shops in Toronto in order to study the narratives. My findings show that both parties used a factual neutral style, as well as a dramatizing style. The later includes such typical crusading strategies as constructing victims and villains and presenting the image of a dystopian social world. In order to explain the use of these strategies, we will relate them to the shifting wider social and historical context and to the symbolic connotation of cannabis shops in Toronto in particular and in Canada as a whole.

Sex and the Devil: Homosexuality, Satanism, and Moral Panic in Late Apartheid South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky Falkof
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
White Male ◽  
White Men ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Male Homosexuals

This article discusses the discursive and narrative intersections between two moral panics that appeared in the white South African press in the last years of apartheid: the first around the claimed danger posed by white male homosexuals, the second around the alleged incursion of a criminal cult of white Satanists. This connection was sometimes implicit, when the rhetoric attached to one was repeated with reference to the other, and sometimes explicit, when journalists and moral entrepreneurs conflated the two in public dialogue. Both Satanists and gay white men were characterized as indulging in abnormal practices that were dangerous to the health of the nation, using a long-standing colonial metaphor of sanitation and hygiene. I argue that fears of homosexuality and beliefs in Satanism operated as social control measures for disciplining potentially unruly groups whose sexual or personal practices were not admissible within apartheid’s injunctions on homogenous conformity among whites. The connection between homosexuality and Satanism, like the connection between homosexuality and communism, served to pathologize whites whose disobedient bodies and beliefs were considered treacherous.

Mass Communications and Nationalism : The Polities of Belonging and Exclusion in Contemporary Greece

Res Publica ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-280
Author(s):  
Roza Tsagarousianou
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Party System ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Communication Process ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
The Cold War

This article focuses on the ways in which the prevalence of nationalist discourse in the communication process has affected political and cultural life in Greece after the end of the Cold War. It is argued that through the emergence of scientific nationalism, the enactment of public rituals, and the creation of moral panics based on media representations of ethnic/religious difference, the 'political' is simplified allowing no room for diversity and difference within the framework of national politics. The Greek mass media have been sustaining 'official' representations of 'Greece' as a nation under threat which have been crucial in the formation and maintenance of public attitudes regarding both ethno-religious minorities within Greece, and ethnic and religious groups in neighbouring countries and have undermined the formation and maintenance of public spaces (including the mass media) for representation and identity negotiation, independent from state institutions or the party system.

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