The Cronulla Riots By Stanley Cohen: Moral Panics

A moral panic in Stanley Cohen’s terms defined as a social group of people coming together to create a threat to social values and interests. The social groups are a group of young people that are usually associated with youth, crime and violence which lead to moral alarms in the public. In serious events such as the Cronulla riots that occurred in 2005 and the middle eastern “ethnic gangs” that occurred in 1998-2000, the mass media plays a huge role in sending out an exaggerated message to the public which makes it known as a moral panic. Moral panics come from different frameworks such as sociology of law and social problems as well as the sociology of collective behavior (Cohen, 1987). Moreover, the different type of moral panic events is divided in either primary or secondary deviance
in regards of collective behavior. For such serious events to be called moral panics they occur in seven steps which are known as a looming threat, crystallizing moment, inventory/stereotype, moral entrepreneurs speak out, experts & remedies, official response and thread subsides (Morgan, 2018).
The first serious event that occurred in 2005 known as the Cronulla riots was held for a few days down at Sutherland Shire south of Sydney.
The Cronulla riots officially began after a physical clash between a group of four Lebanese young men and three lifesavers on the beach (Poynting, 2006). The lifesavers started the clash by verbally insulting the Lebanese young men which had led the Lebanese men to attack the lifesavers. The incident was reported onto commercial media, newspapers and more, the media spoke about the incident for almost a week. The Daily Telegraph is an Australian newspaper company which sent out the first step of a moral panic known as the looming threat producing race hate and crime. Also, the Daily Telegraph announced it as the ‘battle of the beach’ whereas the radio station announced it as the ‘community show of force’ (Poynting, 2006). The riot was essentially a battle to show the Lebanese people whose area there in and to who the beach belongs to. As Cohen (1987) states that the mass media possesses a society of ideas due to behavior as well as the information gathered defines what is so called the ‘news’ and how it should be structed and presented
(p.9).
Furthermore, the moral panic that happened in 1998-2000 about the “ethnic gangs” constructs a link between youth and crime. This event was largely cooperated through the English media associated in Australia such the press, radio, television and more. Having said that, moral panic was a stabbing incident that caused death to a Korean-Australian fourteen-year-old boy in Sydney’s South-western suburb (Poynting, Noble & Tabar,2001). The media identified this moral panic to “youth and gangs”, “youth and crime”, “ethnicity and gangs”, however, the police were eying out the middle-eastern and mainly the Lebanese backgrounds due to a shooting being fired into a nearby police station two weeks after the stabbing incident. Despite all these incidents the media has pointed out that groups of ethnic minority young people who socialise together anywhere in the public are referred to as “gangs” who are negative and dangerous people (Poynting, Noble & Tabar, 2001).
What’s more, is that there is a similarity between both events which is involving the middle-eastern and the Lebanese Muslim association. The focus of the Cronulla riots was directly towards the Australian Lebanese that rapidly took a move towards the religion of Islam (Itaoui and Dunn, 2017). In the case of moral panics, the Lebanese- background youth in Sydney has been presented timeless times as ideological elements of crime and more, known as to what the media refers them as “gangs” (Poynting, Noble & Tabar, 2001). According to these types of situations the mass media leaves a drawn-out feeling such as anxiety, which can create social problems that leads to a moral entrepreneur which helps win the public’s support against the ‘gangs’ (Cohen,1987).
Though, most situations like the Cronulla riots and the middle-eastern “ethnic gangs” highlight the ways in which racism fills the lives of ethnic minorities youth, in a formation of groups for instance street gangs that are involved in street fights and more. This leads straight through problems of protection, social status and group identity (White, 2002). In order to the media’s role the media plays it as if they are innocent. They make it to seem like the middle eastern or Lebanese people are the only ones who cause trouble and moral panics.
The social groups create deviance itself in either heading into the direction of primary or secondary deviant. Accordingly, to Cohen’s (1987) terms primary deviance arises from a various of behavior that causes troublesome for an individual. Whereas, the secondary deviance is when an individual attacks or defenses to the problems created by societal reactions. For example, the Cronulla riots is a primary deviance because the riot is based on a various of behaviors and it ended in a short amount of time. On the other hand, the middle eastern ‘ethnic gangs’ is an example of secondary deviance due to societal creating the problem.