reading questions

Description

Please summarize the main points in the assigned articles and answer the questions in your own words rather than quoting.

Julian Petley understands the moral panic about Video Nasties through the processual model. Can you also apply the attributional model to the same panic? How?

What does research show about the effects of violent movies or pornography on children?

What does the term “signification spiral” mean? How does this term apply to Video Nasties?

What does the term “convergence” used by Hall et al. mean? How does this term connect the effects of a single moral panic to larger social/political change?

What kind of larger anxieties does Video Nasties panic refer to? Can you imagine other moral panics that built upon or contribute to the same anxieties even today?

Here are questions and answers that will help you answer the questions above. CRITCHER

Critcher begins his chapter with Stanley Cohen’s original work on moral panic in the 1960s which was later identified as the processual model of moral panic.

1. What are the 6 phases of a moral panic (processual model) according to Cohen?
2. And who are the agents of a moral panic?
3. Why does Cohen think that moral panics happen?
4. How did Hall et al. develope Cohen’s model in their seminal work, Policing the Crisis? What were their contributions?
5. What are the five defining elements of a moral panic in the attributional model? Do not merely name them but explain them briefly.
6. What are the differences and similarities of these two models (processual and attributional) according to Critcher?
7. What are the main criticisms against the concept and how does Critcher respond to them?

GOODE and BEN-YEHUDA

1. What is moral in a moral panic according to Goode and Ben-Yehuda?
2. What is the constructionist approach? What is the main difference between objectivist and constructionist approaches?
3. Goode and Ben-Yehuda identify two main arguments against the concept of moral panic: exaggeration (society’s reaction may not always be exaggerated) and disproportion (it is impossible to verify the claim that a given level of concern is out of proportion to a given level of threat). How do they challenge these criticisms?
4. And what are the main elements of the vertical and horizontal models that they propose? How does this update help solve some of the conceptual problems?

Critcher

1. The first phase is a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerging to become a threat to societal values. The second phase is when the media presents the conditions nature in a stereotypical way. The third phase is when moral barricades are formed by right-thinking individuals. Fourth phase is when socially credited experts diagnose and discuss solutions of the condition. Fifth phase is when ways of dealing with the condition are developed and frequently resorted to. Then finally the sixth phase is when the condition disappears.

2. The mass media, moral entrepreneurs, control culture, and public. Honestly quite interested in this answer because I expected mass media but not the control culture. Which I know now refers to the police and courts.

3. Cohen thinks that moral panics happen because they reaffirm the moral values of society. Cohen suggests that moral panics are endemic because society will continue to product the deviants which it then condemns. I one hundred percent agree with this. It is sad, but there will always be a folk devil, and it will only change or go away when there is something deemed even more against the vision of society than the current condition.

4. Hal et al. developed Cohen’s model by providing an example of how the moral panic was a closed cycle, just as Cohen’s phases had analyzed. Their contributions likely helped to back up the media’s direct role in these moral panics.

5. The five defining elements of a moral panic are Concern, Hostility, Consensus, Disproportionality, and Volatility. Concern is the inciting factor, having concern for a group or category. Hostility is exactly as it says, the concern grows into hostility as the condition is demonized by more and more people. Consensus is when society as a whole or as a part see the threat and know how they feel about it. Dis proportionality is in relation to the reaction and data compared to the scale or realistically small amount of the condition. Volatility is where the cycle finishes, as the same moral panics can be brought up again but they won’t be the main focus forever, the panic dies down and moves onto something else.

6. According to Critcher, he deducted that both models agree on moral panics being recurrent features in society with identifiable consequences, along with agreeing that moral panics are an extreme form of more general processes. Even though the authors of both admire the others work, there are differences in Critcher’s eyes. One has more emphasis on media involvement which I honestly agree with, as it had almost 4 steps regarding the media itself. Critcher also cites the difference in one determining that politicians react and help mold moral panics, while the other focuses more on those who made the claims to begin with. The third difference is how they conceptualize the language of moral panics.

7. The criticisms are regarding a few different things. The moral panic term itself has been criticized, along with the failure to explain the audience and opinion body’s of media and the role they play. The dynamics, in which the agency of a moral panic can affect how it is contested. Critique also lies in the effects and consequences, and that models need updating. Critcher cites Jewkes debunking position, regarding how there are flaws in the moral panic analysis but it should not be rejected as invalid or unhelpful.

GOODE & Ben Yehuda

1. The moral in a moral panic is the expression of outrage at the violation of a given absolute value, the undermining of something that a sector of the society regards as good in itself.

2. The constructionist position entails investigating how real or percieved conditions are defined, framed, packaged, and explained. Realists hold that social problems research entails studying material condtions with more or less identifiable properties. One works with verifiable while the other is regarding real and perceived.

3. Exaggeration was contested using the case of LSD use, in which it was more panic driven than materially real. Proving the exaggeration argument wrong by showing that LSD was not a real threat to the level claimed hence the idea that the reaction is exaggerated. The disproportion sides argues that it is impossible to verify the claim that a given level of concern is out of proportion. This one was much more easily disproven, as most cases prove the concept of disproportion.

4. The hierarchical/vertical model contends that moral panics erupted on behalf of a dominating moral order. While the postmodern/horizontal model argues for multi-mediation fragmentation. The vertical model also regards the society as a whole. Both models combine neatly with the contextual constructionist perspective.

WALBY & SPENCER

1. They argue that emotions should be studied with more nuance. Considering a crowd of people can all have different emotions. Regarding moral panic literature, they believe it flattens and dull emotions without giving adequate context.

Here are another set of answers to those questions. Critcher:

1. Processual model
   1. A demographic, subject, event, or person becomes defined as a dangerous threat to society
   2. The nature of the threat is presented and talked about in a derogative, stereotypical, potentially inaccurate, and overly dramatized manner
   3. Religious clerics, politicians, editors and writers, and other conservative-leaning people become in charge of defining morality
   4. Experts with social accreditation and power define solutions and treatments for the morality crisis
   5. Society creates different coping and response mechanisms to moral panic
   6. The condition of the moral panic subsides, increases, or disappears
2. Agents of a moral panic
   1. The four agents who are most important in propagating and spreading moral panics are mass media, moral entrepreneurs, the control culture, and the public
3. Why does Cohen think that moral panics happen?
   1. They are used as tools to reaffirm and strengthen a society’s moral values and parameters
4. How did Hall et al. develop Cohen’s model in their seminal work, Policing the Crisis? What were their contributions?
   1. He developed the four ways that the media contributes to moral panics:
      1. The media acts as secondary definers of the primary definition
      2. The media translates and creates the news into public idioms that the public will clearly understand
      3. The media creates a loop where they return the reactions of the primary defines to the primary defines and treat them as the public’s reaction
      4. Over exaggerate violence to justify responses to the moral panic
5. What are the five defining elements of a moral panic in the attributional model? Do not merely name them but explain them briefly.
   1. The first element is concern. The public develops an increased level of concern toward a certain demographic or event and the consequences of these subjects. The concern can be shown through public polling, media, voting, and lobbying.
   2. The second element is hostility. Once moral deviance and panic are defined, the public shows increasing hostility towards them. The deviants are seen to be a danger in some way to society or vulnerable segments (for example, children).
   3. The third element is consensus. A sizable portion of society or society as a whole must agree that the deviance is a threat to society.
   4. The fourth element is disproportionality. There is a disproportional amount of concern towards moral panic about how much actual harm or danger the panic has towards society. This is encouraged by fabricated or misleading statistics, news reports, and anecdotal claims.
   5. The fifth element is volatility. Moral panics are recurring and can be about the same subjects, but individual moral panics do not last very long.
6. What are the differences and similarities between these two models (processual and attributional) according to Critcher?
   1. The authors of the two models acknowledge, admire, and build off of each other’s work, but there are several key differences between the two models. The first major difference is how the two models view the media and the media’s role in moral panics. In Cohen’s Processual model, the media is integral to the formation and spreading of moral panics and is used as a tool by those who wish to spread moral panic. In Goode and Ben-Yuhedas’s attributional model, the media is more used as a stage for moral panics to be discussed, they are not directly involved in the creation of moral panics. The second major difference is the way that agents contribute to moral panics. In the processual model, agents such as politicians, elected officials, and governmental agencies spread and help create moral panics. In the attributional model, these agents are involved with spreading the moral panics but the creation is more closely associated with claimakers and if the public is persuaded to believe these moral panics. The third major difference is the focus and emphasis that the models place on the language used around moral panics. The processual model places a stronger emphasis on how the arguments of claim-makers are presented to the public.
7. What are the main criticisms against the concept and how does Critcher respond to them?
   1. Rather than completely disregarding the concept of a moral panic and the different models that have been created, Critcher proposes readjusting the language used to describe them in studies and articles.

GOODE and BEN-YEHUDA

1. What is moral in a moral panic according to Goode and Ben-Yehuda?
   1. The moral is defined as an exact value to the society or event/subject that is seen as entirely good. A moral panic emerges when there are concerns that the deviance is somehow breaking or endangering this part of society. Moral panics are how the public expresses their concerns about this.
2. What is the constructionist approach? What is the main difference between objectivist and constructionist approaches?
   1. The constructionist, or definitional, approach is more concerned with researching and defining the conditions of moral panics and how the solutions to them are packaged and spread. Constructionists believe that a social condition does not need to exist in actuality to become a moral panic. The main difference between the constructionist approach and the objectivist, or realist, approach is that the objectivist approach believes that moral panics must be derived from a tangible and real social condition. These conditions have actual consequences for society in a material way.
3. Goode and Ben-Yehuda identify two main arguments against the concept of moral panic: exaggeration (society’s reaction may not always be exaggerated) and disproportion (it is impossible to verify the claim that a given level of concern is out of proportion to a given level of threat). How do they challenge these criticisms?
   1. Exaggeration: The argument that moral panics are often based on genuine concern towards an event or demographic and the dangers they pose is often used against moral panic scholars. Goode and Ben Yehuda use the panic around LSD as an example. They discuss how LSD did pose some risks, as all recreational substances do, but the media and legislators took unsubstantiated claims of the harm that is caused by LSD to enact new laws against it. These claims often became more and more severe and threatening as they were spread through the public before they finally reached the media and claim-makers.
   2. Disproportion: Many critics argue that it is impossible to accurately relate threat to concern regarding moral panics. Goode and Ben-Yehuda bring up five responses: nonexistent conditions and behaviors, implausible causal mechanisms, exaggerated figures, conspiracy theories, and changes over time. They counter that this is a misplaced argument because many moral panics have no basis in reality or are based on inaccurate numbers and statistics, or overly exaggerated word-of-mouth stories.
4. And what are the main elements of the vertical and horizontal models that they propose? How does this update help solve some of the conceptual problems?
   1. The vertical model discusses how moral panics are created, propagated, and used by the elite to maintain power and resources. Goode and Ben Yehuda use the example of police unions, legislators, and politicians exaggerating crime rates, particularly violent crime rates, to increase the legal power and monetary budget of law enforcement.
   2. The horizontal model discusses how moral panics are now aimed at smaller subsets of society due to how stratified and distant modern society has become. Goode and Ben-Yehuda use the example of certain formerly demonized groups gaining more influence to support this argument.

WALBY AND SPENCER

1. What is the role of emotions in moral panics, according to the authors? What is their criticism of moral panic literature, when it comes to emotions?
   1. Walby and Spencer are critical of the lack of literature on the role of emotions in moral panics. In their view, many moral panic scholars discount the importance of emotion unless they’re discussing an irrational response by the public. They believe that emotion plays an important role, particularly fear (and the use of fear to encourage moral panics), and how anger and emotion can be used to instigate violence towards folk devils and the targets of moral panics. They discuss the importance of groupthink and crowds in encouraging vitriol and anger in a moral panic. They discuss how Ahmed’s ideas of disgust vs hate and how these emotions relate to the theory of affective economies. Hate can be experienced by a wide variety of people and form a distance, whereas disgust requires close contact towards a hated group.