Moral Panic
It was Stanley Cohen’s Moral Panics and Folk Devils: The
Creation of the Mods and
Rockers (2002), which, like Young’s work, investigates divergent
social reactions to
deviance and their roles in constructing both deviant and
condoned behaviours, that
provided the definition of moral panic that subsequent
researchers would most
regularly cite. In this book, originally published in 1972,
Cohen (2002: 1) describes
at length the social response to deviance outlined by
Young:
Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods
of moral
panic. A condition, episode, a person or group of persons
emerges to.
To understand why virtually the entire British media and
significant chunks of the political class have become weirdly obsessed with
small numbers of trolls who fire vile insults at women, you could do worse than
dip back into the late, great Stanley Cohen’s 1972 book, Folk Devils
and Moral Panics. An indispensable guide to the modern era’s malarial-like
social scares, which come and go like waves of a fever, Cohen’s book
popularised the term ‘moral panic’. A moral panic occurs, he said, when ‘a
condition, episode, person or group of persons become defined as a threat to
societal values and interests’. A moral crusade, fuelled by ‘media
sensationalism’, is then launched against these allegedly threatening
‘deviants’, he said, until they loom large in the public mind as ‘folk devils’
whose behaviour poses a threat to public safety or moral norms. In the past,
Teddy Boys, football hooligans and drug-taking you were elevated to the status
of folk devils; today, it’s internet trolls.
'The 'amplification' which takes place through the media's work serves to appeal to the public so that they concur with ready-made opinions about the course of action to be taken'
A teenager who killed herself after her parents banned her from Facebook left a note for a devastated family saying she couldn't live without the site.
a second year college student from Parbhani, in the Maharashtra state of India, had asked her parents for permission to log on to the site on Wednesday, but they said no.
The teenager then got into an argument with the couple who told her that she should pay more attention to school work, and spend less time on Facebook.
This is an example of a moral panic as the media has exaggerated saying that the girl cannot live without Facebook. This makes the public and other views be worried about there own child as they would also think that there son/daughter will take this step if they prevent them from going onto a social networking site.
http://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/5573/2/Fulltext.pdf/
Social Network - Impact On teenagers
All this on-line friend-forming is affecting teenagers’ development, according to experts. Researchers say social-networking sites are shortening attention spans, encouraging instant gratification, and making young people more self-focused. A British neurologist warns that extended use of the sites actually rewires the brain, causing teenagers to require constant reassurance that they exist. Other dangers are more subtle. Kids may no longer spend time completely alone, enjoying the benefits of reflection and solitude. Yet they may feel isolated because they’re less likely to be communicating with the real humans in their homes, schools, and churches. Finally, teenagers may focus even more on all the worries that accompany adolescence. So instead of escaping from their problems, kids dwell on them even more.
Negatives
Seventy percent of teens use social networking sites, according to an article on the U.S. Department of Labor website. One of the most serious problems related to these sites concerned safety issues and reports of sexual interactions between adults and minors on MySpace, according to the “Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.” Other issues related to privacy concerns include false information posted by online users and unwanted sexual solicitations. Regular use of social media sites also increases the risk of teen alcohol use, according to information from the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
Grades, Socialization and Behaviour
Social media can be distracting, according to an article on the Psych Central website. Teens who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period had lower grades. In addition, those teens who used Facebook more often are more likely to display narcissistic behaviour, antisocial behaviour, mania, aggressive tendencies, anxiety and depression.
Positive
On a positive note, however, teens on Facebook were better at showing empathy to on-line friends, and social networking can help provide tools to help teens engage with others. The Dept. of Labor also noted that teens with disabilities can socialize anonymously, which may be beneficial in some cases.
Stereotypes
- The vast majority of parents and children described their family relationships in positive terms. Most parents and teenagers reported that relationships had improved as children moved through their teenage years, coming closer to a companionship between equals.
- Few parents identified with a view of the teenage years as particularly difficult. Young people also rejected the stereotype of teenagers becoming increasingly disconnected from their families.
- Teenagers valued their parents ‘being there’ as a crucial form of background support. Even when teenagers were in serious trouble and parents voiced distress and anger, they also described feelings of love and pride towards their children.
- Many of the young people placed a strong emphasis on personal responsibility and accountability for their actions, as well as their increasing independence.
- Although teenagers recognised their parents’ concern and care as an expression of love, there were tensions between trust and their desire for privacy. While parents were often confident that their children had not experimented with sex or drugs, some teenagers had deliberately kept their activities secret.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeYnWL3D9A
This is an extract from CNN news, an American news station. This shows a
different representation of youths, in the previous text it showed a negative
representation but in this one it shows a more positive image for
teenagers/young adults
The costume the young black man was wearing showed a completely different image
to what you would expect. He wore a smart shirt and tie putting the message
that he was serious and wanted to make a difference, instead of the previous
costume of hoodies and tracksuits.
The lighting is kept high key, there isn’t much editing of lighting changed to
how it would look in real life, so that it looks realistic and that it’s
something you can trust.
The sound is edited so we
can hear the young man talking louder than all the background noises like the
shouting and cameras so that we can concentrate and hear what he’s saying
rather than get distracted with things that aren’t relevant. Also his body language
shows that he knows how to carry himself to get the message across, again not
the typical stereotype.
Crime, Justice and the Media- By Ian Marsh, Gaynor Melville, Gaynor
Melville. 2009.-“Dorfman (2001) found that over three-quarters (76%) of the
public said they formed their opinions about crime from what they see or read
in the news, more than three times the number of those who said they got their
primary information on crime from personal experience (22%).”An amazing bit of statistics that show just how much the media
influences the public’s views. Dorfman (2001) carried out research finding that
over three quarters of people get their opinions from the news this puts
forward the idea of hegemony suggested by Karl Marx but then furthered by
Gramsci. Gramsci understood that the media teaches people to do things
voluntarily to upkeep supremacy in authority and in this context the media
‘teaches’ the dominant view on crime, which people then cooperate with by also
taking on this view hence proving Dorman’s study. But then it isn’t clear if
the view on crime is specifically targeted at young people or at others and the
youth today are represented positively. As mentioned in Bill Osgerby’s ‘Youth
Media’ “Positive media representation of youth did not disappear, but
there was a palpable resurgence of more negative coverage” so the view on crime
that some people take from the media could be positive for young teens.
Parents, Children, Young people and the state by
Sandra Shaw: Page: 90 “The notion of ‘youth’ is seen as a fairly recent
invention”. The word ‘youth’ is labelled with
negative connotations therefore ‘the notion of youth’ may have been created to
victimise a different target. One of the media’s main purposes is to provide
their audience with a good story or a new story. The media
puts forward its hegemonic views that the public passively accepts (hypodermic
syringe) making stereotypes easy to believe. As all stories have to go through
a gatekeeper and the media is able to pick and choose and how stories are
shown, it’s easy for those in power to manipulate accounts and show the
distorted version to the public for them to accept.
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