Moral Panics in Theory and Practice
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Part Two begins with a dedication to Geoffrey Pearson and a commentary about his work. This is followed by five chapters that address some of the many issues and concerns surrounding young people, children and childhood; what links them is their use of a moral panic perspective (some more explicitly than others) to understand what is going on both in and behind the various anxieties that are discussed. Part Two, along with the other parts of the book, contains chapters that draw from the disciplines of sociology, social policy, psychology and social work. All the chapters in this Part highlight the importance of not taking things for granted and of questioning the basis of our beliefs. The social issues identified here all have consequences, often negative ones, for individuals and for society; such is the power of panics.
Part Three begins with a dedication to Stuart Hall and a commentary about his work. This is followed by five chapters that explore moral panics and their effect on and interaction with the state and government. There are chapters here on everything from internet pornography to internet radicalisation, from ‘chavs’ to ‘troubled families’, and finally, patient safety. With their ability to be taken up by politicians, law-makers and law-enforcers, moral panics have potentially detrimental consequences for all of us. They can be used by the state to justify practices, policies and legislation that are, at the very least, repressive and regressive.
Part Four begins with a dedication to Jock Young and a commentary about his work. Part Four’s chapters bring together what might appear to be rather disparate subject matter. Some common themes emerge, however, to provide compelling illustrations of many of the elements of Jock Young’s thesis which is that when societies are in crisis, personal and social unease are displaced onto a scapegoat; scapegoated groups are not chosen by accident, but are closely related to the source of anxiety. Perhaps, the most obvious message in this final Part is that moral panics are likely to erupt around issues of profound moral importance (but also where there is a perceived threat), such as life and death, good and evil, sex (especially when linked with children), the body and an existential threat to cherished beliefs and institutions.
In common with the other bytes in this series, a key theorist within the ‘moral panic’ genre is introduced here. Stuart Hall’s ideas have been pivotal to the development of a more overly political analysis of moral panics. Many of his ideas are reflected in the chapters in this volume and throughout the series, while others have been taken forward in other writing in the field.
Stuart McPhail Hall was born on 3 February 1932 in Kingston, Jamaica and first came to the UK in 1951 to study English at Oxford University, after winning a Rhodes scholarship. He described himself as a ‘familiar stranger’ at Oxford, steeped in English traditions and yet very different socially, culturally and ethnically to the other students and staff. He found politics (Marxism), and became part of the Universities and Left Review, which later merged with the New Reasoner to form the New Left Review, with Hall as its founding editor. Hall completed his MA and began a PhD on the Anglo-American novelist Henry James, before giving up his studies and moving to London, where he worked as a supply teacher in Brixton and a magazine editor. In 1961 he was appointed Lecturer in Film and Media at Chelsea College, London University; in 1964, at the invitation of Richard Hoggart, he moved to the newly formed Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University as its first research fellow. He remained until 1979, when he went on to become Professor of Sociology at the Open University, a post that he held until 1998.
In common with the other bytes in this series, a key theorist within the ‘moral panic’ genre is introduced here. Although Geoffrey Pearson does not actually use the term ‘moral panic’ to outline the social reaction to issues and anxieties, his work has played a key part in the development of thinking around the issue of deviance, especially deviance associated with young people, a central theme within moral panic writings. For this reason, we have chosen to include him in this volume.
Geoffrey (Geoff) Pearson was born on 26 March 1943 in Manchester, England and studied moral sciences (Philosophy and Psychology) at Cambridge University. He worked with people with disabilities in Sheffield before going to the London School of Economics to undertake training in psychiatric social work (interestingly, Stan Cohen was also a qualified psychiatric social worker). After qualifying, he returned to Sheffield to practise as a psychiatric social worker. Pearson went on to become a Lecturer in Social Work at Sheffield Polytechnic, and then took up a similar position at University College, Cardiff. It was here that he published his first major work, The Deviant Imagination (1975), which examined the ideological underpinnings of a wide range of theories of deviance. This book also established Pearson's critical perspective on many of the policies and attitudes towards young people that were popular at that time, especially those that were built on ideas of young people's dangerousness.
In 1976, Pearson moved to the University of Bradford. Here he wrote Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears (1983), his most influential work; Hooligan was voted one of seven ‘iconic’ studies in British criminology in 2007.
To open each of the bytes in this series, we introduce the work of a key theorist within the ‘moral panic’ genre. The work of Stanley Cohen has played a central part in the creation of ideas around moral panic and these, as will be shown, have developed over time. Many of Cohen’s ideas are reflected in the chapters in this volume and throughout the series, while others have been taken forward in other writing in the field.
Stanley Cohen (Stan) was born on 23 February 1942 in Johannesburg, South Africa and studied Sociology and Social Work at the University of Witwatersrand. He moved to the UK in 1963 with his wife, Ruth, where he worked as a psychiatric social worker and PhD student at the London School of Economics (LSE), studying social reactions to vandalism. Cohen was appointed to his first academic position in 1967, at the University of Durham, and in 1968, with Jock Young and others, he set up the first National Deviancy Conference, an initiative that was to challenge conventional ideas about crime and criminology for years to come. He moved to Essex University in 1972, where he became a professor in 1974. Stan and Ruth relocated to Israel in 1980; Stan was professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until 1994. He returned to the LSE in 1995, where, as Chair in Sociology, he helped to establish the Centre for the Study of Human Rights.
Stan Cohen is widely held to be one of the world’s pre-eminent sociologists; that he began his career as a social worker makes absolute sense, given his lifelong concern for theory developed from practice, for making connections between the personal and the political, and his deep concern for human rights.
This byte introduces another key theorist within the moral panic genre. The work of Jock Young has played a central part in the creation of ideas around moral panic, and these, as will be shown, have developed over time. Some of Young’s ideas are reflected in the chapters here and the preceding bytes in the series, while others have been taken forward in other writing in the field.
Jock Young was born William Young on 4 March 1942 in Vogrie, Midlothian. When he was five, his family moved to Aldershot, where his Scottish background led to his being given the nickname Jock, which stuck throughout his adult life. Young studied sociology at the London School of Economics. He co-founded the first National Deviancy Conference (NDC) in 1968, where he presented his first conference paper, ‘The Role of Police as Amplifiers of Deviancy’. This idea of deviancy amplification was developed in his first major work, The Drugtakers (1971). It was this book that introduced the concept of ‘moral panic’ into sociological literature, not Cohen’s (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics as is commonly thought.
Young moved to Middlesex Polytechnic (now Middlesex University) in the 1980s and headed up the Centre for Criminology there. He remained at Middlesex for 35 years before moving to the City University of New York in 2002, and later to the University of Kent. In 2009, he returned to New York as Professor of Criminal Justice and Sociology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Young is recognised as one of the world’s pre-eminent criminologists.
The trope of ‘lost childhood’ is a recurring one within UK newspapers. Every few years, a news article, editorial or letter leads with this idea, causing some media interest and connected articles, but then fades away until the next time. This chapter brings together concepts from moral panics and childhood studies to help analyse this trope. As Garland writes, sociologists using the concepts of moral panics start with scepticism that ‘permits the initial observation’ to give ‘way to a different attitude – one that is more analytic, more explanatory, or perhaps better, more diagnostic’.
The trope of ‘lost childhood’ is a recurring one within UK newspapers. Every few years, a news article, editorial or letter leads with this idea, causing some media interest and connected articles, but then fades away until the next time. For those in childhood studies, the trope is familiar, drawing on adults’ idealisations of childhood based around children's ‘pricelessness’, innocence and vulnerability. A less familiar way to consider the trope is through the lens of moral panic theory. This chapter brings together concepts from moral panics and childhood studies to help analyse this ‘lost childhood’ trope. As Garland writes, sociologists using the concepts of moral panics start with scepticism that ‘permits the initial observation’ to give ‘way to a different attitude – one that is more analytic, more explanatory, or perhaps better, more diagnostic’ (Garland, 2008, p 21).
The chapter uses one particular example of the ‘lost childhood’ media articles, a letter published on 23 September 2011 in the UK newspaper the Telegraph. The article was titled the ‘Erosion of childhood’, with the sub-title ‘Here is the full letter from more than 200 experts about how childhood is being eroded by a “relentless diet” of advertising and addictive computer games’. The letter was concerned about ‘too much, too soon’ for children, particularly in relation to ‘increasing commercial pressures’, starting formal education too early and spending time indoors with screen-based technology. The letter cited the UNICEF (2007) publication on children's well-being (where the UK was ranked at the bottom of 21 OECD countries) as key evidence.
An examination of media discourse on welfare spending in New Zealand finds significant linking of child abuse, parenting and welfare dependency. A battle of words rages between advocacy groups and those who would argue that there is no child poverty, only bad parenting. In this ‘age of austerity’ a common element of the discourse is the labelling of ‘feral’ families and feckless parents as scapegoats for moral and economic decline. A re-emerging underclass discourse is revealed, highly racialised, with family violence in the Maori population targeted for intense scrutiny and vilification in the press.