Moral Panics

Moral Panics - Kenneth Thompson

"the age of the moral panic." - Page 1

"moral panic are nothing new." - Page 1

"Almost anything can spark off a panic." - Page 2

"Earlier panics tended to be focused on a single group." - Page 2

"they seem to be increasingly frequent in modern societies." - Page 2

"they take the form of campaigns (crusades), which are sustained over a period, however short or long." - Page 3

"they appeal to people who are alarmed by an apparent fragmentation or breakdown of the social order, which leaves them at risk in some way." - Page 3

Columnist Peter Beaumont - "The language of the moral panic is not new. It is a complaint that has rung out down the ages." - Page 3

"They gave an identity to a newly-emergent middle class which separated it from what it regarded as 'vices' of a decadent aristocracy and the seething working class whose population was exploding." - Page 3-4

Martin Jacques - "we now line in a more demanding moral climate... Our moral repertoire has expanded enormously" - Page 4

Dangerous Gams Play, Pleasure and Panics - Steph Hendry

"Fear and panic about media texts tend not to bear much logical analysis; the panics generally come from an irrational fear which, ironically, is in part generated by the media itself. The fear and panic is often communicated and amplified by the media themselves."

"Repeated access to types of imagery can cause desensitisation in the audience. Put simply, audiences become used to the type of violence that they access in films and therefore if they are to experience the same visceral pleasures, the violence needs to increase."

"Perhaps it is simply the size of an audience that causes concern, as these texts will be experienced by more people. However, when looking at the areas that generate moral panics it becomes clear that one of the concerns is the stimulation of emotion or desire in this mass audience."

"The most problematic texts are those that challenges contemporary social norms."

Moral Panics and the British Media - A Look at Some Contemporary 'Folk Devils' - Ian Marsh and Gaynor Melville

"Refer to the exaggerated social reaction caused by the activities of particular groups and/or individuals."

"A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media"

"how society labels rule-breakers as belonging to particular deviant groups and how once a person or group is labelled, the action they undertake and viewed and interpreted in terms of this label."

"the media can play on the concerns of the public and can create social problems quite suddenly and dramatically."

"media attention increases the isolation of the deviant group who are forced to continue and develop their deviant behaviour and so on."

"Social reaction does not solely rely on the media."

"moral panics define moral boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, there is little or no focus on why groups step outside of those boundaries and behave in the way that they do in the first place."