Describe And Discuss A Moral Panic From A Social Science Prospective
Describe and Discuss a Moral Panic from a Social Science Prospective
A moral panic is when ‘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.’ (Cohen, 2011, p.1) As Stanley Cohen has described in his book on moral panics, this indicates that a moral panic is seen as a danger and creates fear in the mind of the public. A recent example of a moral panic is the London riots, which happened in 2011.
‘On Thursday 4 August 2011 a young father of two was shot dead by police in ‘Tottenham, a deprived area of North London. Initial anger at the shooting and calls for justice developed quickly into violent unrest, which spread through other, mostly deprived, areas of the British capital, and then to other towns and Cities’. (Vrouva, I. Dennington, L. 2011, p.1) The London riots is one of the most recent moral panics which instilled fear in the minds of the society, in this case the youth became defined as a threat to societal values and interests. The media is seen as playing the pivotal role as they portrayed the youth as ‘hoodies’, which is another moral panic which plays a huge part in the modern society as hoodies are associated with anti-social behaviour and it is a commonly used term by the media to describe youth involved with crime, hoodies are now automatically linked with crime even though they are commonly worn by most teens. The media has huge influence in what they want to represent as negative and positive the media can actually instil fear in minds of the modern society by just simply a headline on a newspaper.
Yvonne Jewkes talks about strengths and weaknesses in her book ‘media and crime’ one of the strengths she looks at is ‘The power of the media in defining what counts as normal and deviant behaviour, and the effects of such media labelling on particular social groups.’ (Jewkes, 2011, p.1) This
A moral panic is when ‘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.’ (Cohen, 2011, p.1) As Stanley Cohen has described in his book on moral panics, this indicates that a moral panic is seen as a danger and creates fear in the mind of the public. A recent example of a moral panic is the London riots, which happened in 2011.
‘On Thursday 4 August 2011 a young father of two was shot dead by police in ‘Tottenham, a deprived area of North London. Initial anger at the shooting and calls for justice developed quickly into violent unrest, which spread through other, mostly deprived, areas of the British capital, and then to other towns and Cities’. (Vrouva, I. Dennington, L. 2011, p.1) The London riots is one of the most recent moral panics which instilled fear in the minds of the society, in this case the youth became defined as a threat to societal values and interests. The media is seen as playing the pivotal role as they portrayed the youth as ‘hoodies’, which is another moral panic which plays a huge part in the modern society as hoodies are associated with anti-social behaviour and it is a commonly used term by the media to describe youth involved with crime, hoodies are now automatically linked with crime even though they are commonly worn by most teens. The media has huge influence in what they want to represent as negative and positive the media can actually instil fear in minds of the modern society by just simply a headline on a newspaper.
Yvonne Jewkes talks about strengths and weaknesses in her book ‘media and crime’ one of the strengths she looks at is ‘The power of the media in defining what counts as normal and deviant behaviour, and the effects of such media labelling on particular social groups.’ (Jewkes, 2011, p.1) This