Stanley Cohen - Moral Panics and Folk Devils - Research

(*Copy of Cohen's work is the booklet.)

"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; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to" (Cohen, 1972, p.9).

While Cohen admits that Mods and rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, he states that they were no different to the 'evening brawls' that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games. According to him UK media 'labeled' the mod sub-culture into an adverse symbol of 'delinquent and deviant status '(Cohen, 2011). 

The deviant amplification theory constructed by Cohen states, it is the process by which mass media, through exaggeration and distortion, actually create more crime and deviance (Cohen, 1972, p27).

Although several authors written about the analysis of Mods and rockers since its release in 1972, Professor Jewkes (2004, p67), believed that several fundamental flaws in the idea of 'moral panics' have yet to be resolved. She listed five 'defining features of moral panics' are crucial in determining this social issue.

Moral panics take place when the media turn a fairly ordinary event and turn it as extraordinary.

The media in particular set in place a 'deviance amplification spiral', through which the subject matter of the panic is considered as a source of moral decline and social disintegration.

Moral panics explain the moral limits of the society in which they appear.

Moral panics take place through periods of swift social change and anxiety.

Younger people are the usual target of moral panics; their actions is ‘regarded as a barometer to test the health or sickness of a society'.