Human beings are anxious creatures. We worry about things that might kill us. We worry about things that might kill our children. We worry about things that might get our children high. Even if a trend clearly doesn't create any mortal danger, we worry about the threat it poses to all that's good and wholesome in society. The world faces plenty of real problems, but more often than not the things that pique our collective anxieties are wildly overblown.
Before the 2020s start tossing us a new set of worries, it would be useful to reflect on the last batch of folk demons that we were frightened of and then forgot about. So here are 10 of the biggest moral panics of the last 10 years. Some were real but rare dangers; others were fictions from the get-go.
Moral panics are situations in which the general public experiences an unjustified panic about a specific social issue; politicians and other interested parties?create moral panics to direct what the public worries about and focuses on. In his 1972 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics, Stanley Cohen set the stage for the sociological study of moral panics by examining?the classic moral panic in 1960s Britain of violence between two subcultural groups: Mods and Rockers.?Cohen expressed that the major issue was the “fundamentally inappropriate” reaction to social figures in society to the minor events that occurred (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994).
A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. Typically, a moral panic is perpetuated by the news media, fueled by politicians, and often results in the passage of new laws or policies that target the source of the panic. In this way, moral panic can foster increased social control.
Moral panics are often centered around people who are marginalized in society due to their race or ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, or religion. As such, a moral panic often draws on known stereotypes and reinforces them. It can also exacerbate the real and perceived differences and divisions between groups of people. Moral panic is well known in the sociology of deviance and crime and is related to the labeling theory of deviance.
Been doing a lot of reading about moral panics today. I saw this really dumb Facebook post about the dangers of bumper stickers being passed around by some hick town police department and it reminded me how idiotic social media can be. I’m glad I don’t own a color television and have to see all this crap on television.
Deviant amplification usually starts when one act that is either illegal or against social morals that wouldn't normally be worth of media attention becomes newsworthy. The incident is reported on as being part of a pattern.
Once an incident becomes the focus of the media, other similar stories that normally wouldn't make the news fall under this new media focus and become newsworthy. This begins to create the pattern that was initially reported on. The reports can also make the action seem cool or socially acceptable, leading to more people to try it, which reinforces the pattern. It can be hard to prove when deviant amplification is happening because each new event seems to validate the initial claim.?
Sometimes citizens will pressure law enforcement and government to take action against the perceived?deviant threat. This can mean anything from the passage of new laws to harsher punishments and sentences on existing laws. This pressure from the citizens often requires?law enforcement to put more resources into an issue that it actually warrants. One of the main problems with deviance amplification is that it makes a problem seem much larger than it is. Which in the process can help create a problem where there was none. Deviance amplification can be part of a moral panic but they do not always cause them.?
A moral entrepreneur is an individual, group, or formal organization that seeks to influence a group to adopt or maintain a norm; altering the boundaries of altruism, deviance, duty or compassion.
Moral entrepreneurs take the lead in labeling a particular behaviour and spreading or popularizing this label throughout society. This can include attributing negative labels to behaviour, the removal of negative labels, positive labeling, and the removal of positive labels. The moral entrepreneur may press for the creation or enforcement of a norm for any number of reasons, altruistic or selfish. Such individuals or groups also hold the power to generate moral panic; similarly, multiple moral entrepreneurs may have conflicting goals and work to counteract each other. Some examples of moral entrepreneurs include: MADD (mothers against drunk driving), the anti-tobacco lobby, the gun-control lobby, anti-pornography groups, and LGBT social movements, as well as the pro-life and pro-choice movements, which are an example of two moral entrepreneurs working against each other on a single issue.