A Fish Rots from the Head: How Powerful Moral Entrepreneurs Manufacture Folk Devils

Drawing mainly on examples from France and the United Kingdom, this chapter examines the actors and institutions that carry out particular forms of victimization through prejudice, and analyses the mechanism employed by state actors to create or even boost climates of fear. Through this, the text shows how it is often those labelling others as folk devils that in the end constitute the greatest threats to society.

Moral Entrepreneurialism for the Hamburger: Strategies for Marketing a Contested Fast Food

Recent research has extended the concept of moral entrepreneurialism to corporate actors. We build on this research to investigate how corporations succeed in this effort by uncovering the strategies and tools they employ as moral entrepreneurs. To do so, we examine the corporate discourse of three prominent fast-food firms to identify how they present hamburgers as good food, in a context where beef is increasingly criticized as morally suspect. Based on a discourse analysis of corporate communications and marketing campaigns, we identify three distinct discursive strategies for managing meat criticisms: (1) global managerialism (McDonald’s); (2) aestheticized simplicity (A&W); and (3) nostalgic, personalized appeals (Wendy’s). These strategies are realized through the use of informational tools to shape what customers think and know about beef, and affective tools to influence how customers feel about beef. Together, these corporate strategies speak to the skilful ability of corporate actors to respond to socio-environmental criticisms. Our case shows how fast-food market actors are able to incorporate critique and offer messages that seek to allow people to feel good about eating beef. This case is relevant to understanding the tools that corporations use to be effective moral entrepreneurs. It also provides a deeper understanding of marketing discourse at the nexus of social problems and consumption choices.

Re-emergence of paper marriage discourse as immigration fraud

This paper examines marriage fraud to bypass immigration restrictions. It assesses media representations of marriage fraud for the purpose of immigration in Canada and Germany between 2000-2019. Paper marriages refer to a marriage which is not bonafide but is done to get residency status in a country by at least one of the partners. In this study, I will examine the media’s role as an agency that both shapes and reflect public opinion on this issue. I am interested in understanding what led to the rise of the discourse of paper marriages? Is this an attempt to bypass tightening of immigration rules, or is it because of the rising tide of xenophobia and distrust to foreigners? I will also examine two competing perspectives on paper marriages. The first approach looks negatively and sees paper marriages as a form of deceit or fraud. The other, takes a more compassionate perspective and sees it as an attempt to help others gain residency status. I will examine the role of the media as a moral entrepreneur in creating “moral panic” about immigration fraud. Keywords: Paper marriages, marriage migration, marriages of convenience, marriage fraud, moral panic, moral entrepreneurs, opinion leaders.

Re-emergence of paper marriage discourse as immigration fraud

This paper examines marriage fraud to bypass immigration restrictions. It assesses media representations of marriage fraud for the purpose of immigration in Canada and Germany between 2000-2019. Paper marriages refer to a marriage which is not bonafide but is done to get residency status in a country by at least one of the partners. In this study, I will examine the media’s role as an agency that both shapes and reflect public opinion on this issue. I am interested in understanding what led to the rise of the discourse of paper marriages? Is this an attempt to bypass tightening of immigration rules, or is it because of the rising tide of xenophobia and distrust to foreigners? I will also examine two competing perspectives on paper marriages. The first approach looks negatively and sees paper marriages as a form of deceit or fraud. The other, takes a more compassionate perspective and sees it as an attempt to help others gain residency status. I will examine the role of the media as a moral entrepreneur in creating “moral panic” about immigration fraud. Keywords: Paper marriages, marriage migration, marriages of convenience, marriage fraud, moral panic, moral entrepreneurs, opinion leaders.

Keeping it clean: Graffiti and the commodification of a moral panic

Whereas subcultures such as punk, metal, skate, goth and emo have all been the target of moral panics in the past, the conditions that sparked these moral panics have since become banal and normalized, in line with Stanley Cohen’s claim that moral panics per definition tend to be short-lived. The moral panic about subcultural graffiti in Sweden, however, has proved remarkably consistent. Drawing from contemporary work on moral panics as extreme forms of more mundane moral regulations, this article deals with graffiti as mal placé in relation to both urban space and romanticized conceptions of youth resistance, rendering it not only a suitable enemy for moral entrepreneurs but also a reliable source of income for surveillance and graffiti-removal firms. Whereas the previous subcultural research has discussed moral panics as a first step of the commodification of the subcultural (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CIT0037">Williams 2011</xref>), the authors use the example of graffiti in Stockholm to point to a commodification, not so much of subcultural style, but of the moral panic itself.

Moral Framing Networks

In this chapter, the authors utilize contemporary sociological theory and examples found on the internet to explain how and why moral entrepreneurs deliver and spread erroneous information through mass media to create moral panics. The authors examine what is referred to as the “Latino cyber-moral panic” in the United States, in which immigrants are criminalized in cyberspace and targeted as the “folk devils.” The authors find that moral entrepreneurs use vertical and horizontal mass communication networks to recruit and maintain the membership of moral framing networks. Moral framing networks are particular sectors of the public sphere that share the same moral values as the moral entrepreneur. The moral entrepreneurs utilize the manipulation and the distortion of information, which is distributed in the form of simple messages and/or circular reporting via cyberspace. Moral framing networks can be generalizable, as they can take different forms and functions. Moral entrepreneurs create, increase, or lose power through the manipulation of a moral framing network.

The Contemporary Camming Market

Cam models are independent contractors, but they are not free agents in an open capitalist market. Instead, cam models work in a global network of pornographic industries, which sex entrepreneurs own and control, and moral entrepreneurs regulate. This chapter examines the relationship between sex entrepreneurs such as cam-site and studio owners, moral entrepreneurs such as politicians, legislators, and other rescue-industry agents, and cam models in structuring the camming industry. Moral entrepreneurs dictate the policies that regulate the camming industry. Sex entrepreneurs exploit cam models—all cam sites take a substantial portion of cam model’s sales and pay relatively low commissions. Various overlapping systems of oppression shape the camming industry and affect the wage outcomes and experiences of cam models. Cam models must work hard—but cam models who are thin, White, cisgender, in their 20s, from the United States, and do not work for studios are privileged by various systems of inequality that they have no control over. Far from a feminist, queer, or socialist utopia, the camming industry, while it sometimes provides decent wages to workers, operates via and reproduces the same inequities that exist in any capitalist workplace.