Notes from “On the concept of moral panic” (2008)

Notes from “On the concept of moral panic”

David Garland, Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology,

New York University, USA

Published in Crime, Media, Culture, Vol.4 No.1, (2008) pp.9-30

The article “develops a critical analysis of the concept of moral panic and its sociological uses ... arguing that some of the concept’s subtlety and power has been lost as the term became popular.”

“moral panic” – a concept with an enormous impact. 

• not just in sociology, “where it has spawned a small sub-discipline of moral panic studies” ...
• but also on “the language of cultural debate and on the practice of journalists and politicians.”

e.g., In debates about social problems or societal risks, one side can claim that the other’s reaction is “merely a moral panic.” 

• “In an age of exaggeration, where the mass media regularly converge on a single anxiety-creating issue and exploit it for all its worth, the utility of a negating, deflationary riposte is perfectly apparent.” 
• Moral panic: the term “has become part of the standard repertoire of public debate.”

Stanley Cohen’s “classic study” Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972):

• “provided our mass-mediated world with this essential argumentative device”
• “an empirically grounded but relentlessly theoretical work”

Cohen’s (2004) definition of moral panic:

"Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. 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; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible.  Sometimes the object of the panic is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight.  Sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten, except in folklore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes... in legal and social policy or even in the way society conceives itself.” 

The proposed definition of panic (from the OED): “A sudden and excessive feeling of alarm or fear, usually affecting a body of persons, and leading to extravagant or injudicious efforts to secure safety.”

Another definition of moral panic from the book Policing the Crisis (Hall et al., 1978):

• “When the official reaction to a person, groups of persons or series of events is out of all proportion to the actual threat offered, when ‘experts’, in the form of police chiefs, the judiciary, politicians and editors perceive the threat in all but identical terms, and appear to talk ‘with one voice’ of rates, diagnoses prognoses and solutions, when the media representations universally stress ‘sudden and dramatic’ increases (in numbers involved or events) and ‘novelty’, above and beyond that which a sober, realistic appraisal could sustain, then we believe it is appropriate to speak of the beginnings of a moral panic.’...”
• emphasis is on “qualities of disproportion, exaggeration and alarm”
• also, emphasis on the “consensual quality of the overblown social reaction, even if that consensus is somewhat strained and artificial.”

Indicators of a moral panic?  According to “the standard text on moral panics” (Good and Ben Yehuda, 1994), there are five key features of a moral panic:

1)     concern: “some reported conduct or event sparks anxiety;”

2)     hostility: “the perpetrators are portrayed as folk devils;”

3)     consensus: “the negative social reaction is broad and unified;”

4)     disproportionality: “the extent of the conduct, or the threat it poses, are exaggerated;”

5)     volatility: “the media’s reporting and the associated panic emerge suddenly, but can disspate quickly too.”

Garland (author) argues that this definition omits two essential elements:

• the “moral dimension” of the social reaction, “particularly the introspective soul-searching that accompanies the episodes,” and
• the idea that “the deviant conduct in question is somehow symptomatic.”
• “Together, these two elements – a moral dimension, a symptomatic quality – are important, because they point to the true nature of the underlying disturbance; namely, the anxious concern on the part of certain social actors that an established value system is being threatened.”
• “This fear that a cherished way of life is in jeopardy is central to Cohen’s account of moral panics, their nature and their genesis.”
• In the introduction to the 3rd edition of Cohen’s book: “successful moral panics owe their appeal to their ability to find points of resonance with wider anxieties” (2004).

Gartner describes the “outcry, soul-searching, and social reaction” regarding gun violence in the UK (c.2007) as “a classic moral panic” and notes that it has “a troubling form of youth deviance at its centre” – “an exemplary instance of the genre.”

Types of Moral Panic

• the Classic Moral Panic
• the example given is gun violence in the UK c.2007
• contains all the elements identified by Stanley Cohen when he studied the phenomenon

Variations on the Classic Moral Panic:

• Moral panics vary in “intensity, duration and social impact.” 
• Some moral panics are minor and inconsequential; others “are major, fateful developments which transform masses of lives and whole social landscapes” – for example, witch burning, or anxiety of ‘national decline’ in Britain
• Some are isolated incidents; others “are part of a series, each episode building on the other”
• The problems to which moral panics respond “can turn out to be trivial, serious, or a figment of the imagination – although the revealed extent of the problem usually bears little relation to the reaction it produces.”
• Moral panics can be “spontaneous grass-roots events, unselfconsciously driven by local actors and anxieties [...] or deliberately engineered for commercial or political gain.”
• A moral panic can produce different kinds of reaction; for example, “society’s gardiens” may respond unanimously, with one voice, prescribing one course of action.  Or, the reaction may be divided in terms of “reaction and the interpretive frames” that commentators seek to impose on events

Causes:

• “may also vary with the nature and focus of the moral panic,” but, generally there are “a loose set of causal conditions”:
• “existence of a sensationalist mass media;
• “the discovery of some new or hitherto unreported form of deviance;
• “the existence of marginalized, outsider groups suitable for portrayal as ‘folk devils;’
• “an already primed, sensitized audience.”
• Precipitated by:
• “transitions in the social, economic or moral order of the society
• “threats of existing hierarchies
• “impact of social change upon established ways of live
• “breakdown of previously-established structures of control”

Folk devils and their relation to moral panics

Cohen: moral panics and folk devils have an interactive relationship

• typically, “deviance amplification”
• “media attention and increased social control prompt a hardening of the original deviance [...] even an enhancement of its attraction for potential deviants.”
• “Depending on context, balance of forces, interaction dynamics, and the ongoing choices of participants, the emergence of a moral panic can cause the deviance in question to be halted, amplified or altogether transformed.” (eg, “the organizing, mobilizing and politicizing effects” of moral panic reactions on marginalized groups)

Particular groups are singled out to become folk devils because they “possess characteristics that make [them] a suitable screen upon which society can project sentiments of guilt and ambivalence.”

• “Moral panic targets are not randomly selected: they are cultural scapegoats whose deviant conduct appalls onlookers so powerfully precisely because it relates to personal fears and unconscious wishes.”

Role of the mass media:

• in addition to the political uses of moral panics...
• ...note that the mass media “are typically the prime movers and prime beneficiaries of these episodes”
• “the sensation they create [...] sells papers, entertains readers, and generates further news and commentary as the story unfolds, the spokespeople take sides, and the deviant phenomenon develops.
• perhaps going as far as to say (Young, 1971) that media have “an institutionalized need to create moral panics [...] to fan public indignation [and] to engineer” them

Productivity of Moral Panics

Episodes of moral panic “make things happen” ... they create and leave a legacy.

• eg, movement towards the ‘law and order’ society, towards mass imprisonment, to development of surveillance apparatus
• Hall et al. (1974: 221): “The moral panic appears to us to be one of the principal forms of ideological consciousness by means of which a ‘silent minority’ is won over to the support of increasingly coercive measures on the part of the state, and lends legitimacy to a ‘more than usual’ exercise of control.”
• Moral panics often seem ephemeral but, “over time their cumulative effect can be to create social divisions and redistribute social status as well as building infrastructures of regulation and control that persist long after the initial episode has run its course.”
• eg, in the US, control of ‘sin’ such as alcohol, sex trade, drugs, has been accomplished via morality crusades – “a build-up of governmental regulation and nationwide enforcement that could never have been achieved by means of normal political processes.”
• Yet the author cautions against “attribut[ing] too much efficacy to ‘panics’ and too little to rational reactions to underlying problems” – sometimes the reaction can be justified.
• “the initial moral panic may serve to attract public attention and force the problem onto the political agenda, but the revealed character of the underlying phenomenon may be sufficient to explain subsequent social reactions.”

Moral panics and cultural conflicts

Recent scholarship (for example, McRobbie and Thornton, 1995) emphasizes “the relative scarcity today of consensual social reactions and the importance of oppositional voices in the media and in the public domain.” 

• in the time of Stanley Cohen, “a relatively cohesive establishment and a narrowly focused mass media could give the impression of a unified public reaction”
• since that time: “growth of publicly accessible media ...emergence of alternative youth press, existence of counter-experts ... and activists willing to speak out on behalf of targeted folk devils.”
• therefore consensual expressions of concern are no longer as common

How do these changes in conditions affect the nature of moral panics?

• Move away from moral panics as traditionally imagined (“involving a vertical relation between society and a deviant group”); instead, move towards “something more closely resembling American-style ‘culture wars.’” (more horizontal, between groups)
• Genuine, nation-wide moral panics have given way to “moral crusades, symbolic politics and culture wars, where specific social groups engage in moral politics in order to redistribute social status and declare one form of life superior to its rivals.” 
• Therefore, “the meaning and value of the conduct in question becomes much more contested.”  Folk devils are not necessarily “powerless in the face of public outrage [...] the targets of today’s moral campaigns will sometimes have the capacity to resist deviant identities and assert the social value and normality of their conduct.”

Lastly, Thompson (1998) suggests that the processes of moral panic are well-enough known that participants are now self-conscious and deliberate in their actions ... “the rules of the game are well known.” 

• “The tendency of a self-involved media to ironicize its own sensationalism, point out its alarmism at the same moment that it sounds the alarm, together with the new possibilities of resistance discussed earlier, tend to reduce the mobilizing power of moral panics today”

THE CONCEPT AND ITS USES

The concept draws from the ideas of Durkheim and Freud.

• the ideas of Durkheim have to do with the Theory of Deviance Reaction, 1982:
• moral panics are “boundary-defining”
• moral panics are surrounding by “collective effervescence” which is “the energy and excitement that are unleashed by moral panic episodes, as well as the enjoyment [for onlookers] generated by these collective waves of righteous indignation” -- the energy of passionate outrage and the opportunities that can provide
• Usual interpretation of moral panic events:
• “We tend to emphasize the overblown social reaction that these events involve and to focus upon the actors and agencies that benefit from the exaggerated response.”
• Not surprising, “given the concept’s roots in the radical interactionist’s critique of social control, and given its continuing value as a critical tool with which to discredit overzealous law enforcement and moral conservatism.”
• But, “this focus on power and profit and self-interested manipulation has tended to overshadow the moral and psychological connotations of the concept” – which the author feels is essential to understanding.

The author therefore sets about “addressing the concept’s origins, its uses, and the attitudes that it implies for an observer using moral panic framework.”       

Origins

The term “moral panic”:

• comes from “late 1960’s social reaction theory”

• particularly rooted in “concern with the media’s role in stereotyping and misrepresenting deviance and the perception that such reporting might contribute to a deviancy amplification spiral.
• Stanley Cohen is one of the next generation of moral panic theorists; developed the idea that “social control can lead to intensified deviance” through an “interactive process” of self-adjusting behvaior and self-fulfilling prophecy.

The idea has a ‘cultural source,’ “deriving from [...] attitudes of young 1960s sociologists like Cohen, Young and Ditton and their colleagues at the National Deviancy Conference.

• the typical participant-observer at such a conference: “often culturally closer to the deviants than to their controllers”
• “saw criminal law as a misplaced form of repression” at least regarding soft drugs and sub-cultures / styles
• a “standard critical response” was developed “in the face of what they regarded as uninformed, intolerant, and unnecessarily repressive reactions to deviance by conservative authorities”

The “standard critical response” has two components – note how the term “moral panic” encapsulates both of them.

1)     Anxiety is misplaced. The reaction is an over-reaction. The problem is not as serious as it appears.

2)     “The real problem is not the deviant behaviour, it is your compulsive need to moralize.”

Criticism/Reaction:

• Scholars pushed back when the term “moral panic” (originally used to describe reactions to crime such as vandalism, delinquency, soft drug use, etc) started to be applied to a wave of violent crime in the UK – pushing the term beyond its original limits.
• Yet, the “appeal of moral panic analysis” was powerful and in the 1970’s, using the term became a way to dismiss claims that crime rates were rising or that people should feel insecure.
• In reaction, the development of left realism and the idea that we should ‘take crime seriously’ and not downplay the problem of crime.
• “As often happens when a concept seems especially powerful or illuminating, the care and precision of its original application were forgotten and its use became more general and indiscriminate. [...] For a brief period in the late 1970s and 1980s, the term was caught up in ideological battles in which the social meaning of deviance and reaction, crime and control, became important stakes not just in criminological debate but also in national politics (Garland, 2001)”

Actors, observers, skeptics

The term “moral panic”:

• is almost always applied from outside
• is “not a self-description of the participants, at least not while they are participating”
• implies that the reaction in question is “inappropriate, ill-judged, lacking proportion”
• the people being described (presumably) do no believe they are engaging moral panic “and would typically contest that description”

• is “a negative label applied to those who engage in negative labeling, the analysts’ revenge on the forces of social reaction.”
• it “implies more than an empirical judgment about confict”
• it “implies a definite stance on the part of the analyst”

What is the implied analytical stance?

• skepticism – “knowing disbelief”
• “an urbance refusal to be taken in or carried away”
• “If moral panics sometimes have a religious zeal to them, even an old-fashioned fundamentalism, the task of exposing them as moral panics falls to doubters, agnostics, and unbelievers.”

Sometimes an analysis of a moral panic is made up of just that: “amoral skepticism.”  Other times, “the skepticism that permits the initial observation gives way to a different attitude – one that is more analytic, more explanatory, [...] more diagnostic.”

• by calling it a “panic,” the analyst is pointing to “neurotic behaviour, hysteria” and by implication “to an underlying conflict that is producing the moral panic as its acting-out expression.”
• A well-rounded look at a moral panic considers:
• Symbolic meaning: “why this folk devil, construed as this type of monster, with these specific connotations and associations?”
• Social relations: “why this group, with these interests, in this place?”
• Historical temporality: “why at this moment, after these events, in this period?”
• Policing the Crisis is a great example.

Conceptual problems and limitations

Moral panic analysis has attracted some recurring criticism, none of which undermine the value of the original concept, but that should be borne in mind.

Proportion:

• any discussion of moral panic starts from the premise that the reaction is disproportionate to the underlying threat/danger/deviance.... this immediately raises the question of “the real nature and extent of the underlying problem.”  Is the reaction indeed disproporionate? Or is the problem really that serious?
• This is a challenge because usually we are not measuring a direct thing, but rather the potential of something to become a threat.

Proportion to what?

• Skeptics such as Simon Watney (1987) have suggested: “when a sociologist claims to find a social reaction out of proportion, he or she is not measuring the reaction against some hard reality, bu merely against his or her own representation of the way things are.”
• ie, there is no “resort to empirical facts” – just “a contest of representations that is ultimately determined by power and interest.”

Moral judgments:

• some sociology measures facts such as rates of change, rates of conduct, extent of phenomenon – but “it is more difficult to assess the validity of the moral judgments made by others.”
• when someone claims a moral panic, others can claim that the researcher is simply failing to seriously consider the concerns of the affected people
• “What the analyst sees as a hysterical overreaction may be seen by the participants as an appropriate response to a deeply troubling moral evil.”

Unhinged reaction:

• Social reaction phenomena: includes moral panics, control waves, law and order campaigns, zero tolerance movements, ‘defining deviance down’
• their common element: “the insight that social reaction is not fully determined by the deviance to which it purportedly responds”
• But there is some link between the cause and the reaction, “however tenuous”
• Moral panic analysis can obscure this link entirely, “making the underlying problem disappear and disregarding the concerns of those adversely affected by it.”
• “The trick is not to think in terms of an absolute distinction (studying reaction but not deviance, punishment but not crime) but in terms of relative autonomy – studying the multiple dynamics of reaction, only some of which relate to the deviance being addressed.” 
• Links between deviance and reaction usually do exist, even if tenuous

Anthropomorphizing

• the idea that “society overreacts” – what society?
• “society” involved many diverse, conflicting, disparate viewpoints – not one monolith
• “increasing awareness of political fragmentation and media proliferation make such anthropomorphized accounts less credible, and less common, in contemporary literature.”

Ethics of attribution

• “‘Moral panic’ is always an ascribed term, attributed from the outside, usually in a critical manner.”
• What ethical concerns govern its use?
• is use of the term “tactless, morally insensitive, or otherwise inappropriate”?
• important questions are those regarding scale and intensity ,”and considerations of those harmed by the deviance in question.”
• Lastly, what is the relationship between analyst and the social actors concerned? “Whether intended or not, moral panic analysis carries with it a certain aggression and critical disparagement that cannot be fully concealed beneath the guise of scholarly objectivity.”

IN CONCLUSION: Contrastive and Complementary Concepts

• Moral panic operates within a context of other social reaction concepts, with which it can be compared and contrasted. 
• The context of moral panic is “the study of social reaction” which comprises more than one concept / worldview. 
• Other Concepts: Denial, Cultural Trauma, Risk Society Reactions

Denial:

• “operates in the same general framework as moral panic”
• is “the refusal to permit a disturbing event access to consciousness”
• but it also has sociological dimensions and can be examined as a social practice.
• Cohen has also written about this topic.
• According to Cohen, there are three types of denial:
• Literal denial (“nothing happened”)
• interpretive denial (“something happened but it’s not what you think”)
• implicatory denial (“what happened was not really bad and can be justified”).
• Moral panic = excessive or disproportionate reaction // Denial = inappropriate absence of a reaction... “a hysterical (or deliberate) silence, a determination (conscious or unconscious) not to speak of the disturbing events or episodes.”
• Moral panic and Denial – both elements in the study of social reaction, which “trace[s] a continuum of collective responses to social and moral deviance.”

Cultural Trauma:

• Concept of moral panic: developed “to deflate social reaction by pointing to a neurotic over-reaction or symptomatic hysteria”
• Its antithesis: the concept of Cultural Trauma, “intended to mark a profound moral event and its lasting cultural consequences.”
• “Use of this term carries no challenge to the integrity or the proportionality of the social reaction” – rather “it unquestioningly accepts that some events are so profoundly disturbing to the moral order that they traumatize a culture and the collective life of its members.”

Risk Society Reactions:

• Much has been written about ‘risk’ and the ‘risk society’... “risk perception, risk communication, risk management, and the general politics and sociology of risk” with some important overlaps with moral panic studies.
• risk tends to involve threats to health and well-being, rather than “threats to the moral code of a particular group”
• “Moral panics involve anxious disapproval of moral threats, whereas risk society threats involve fearful uncertainty about moral hazards.”
• Or, put another way: “Moral panics usually focus on social control processes aimed at the moral failings of dispossessed groups.  Risk society issues tend to involved diverse interest groups contendingf over relatively intractable scientific claims (Ungar, 2001).”
• Note that “risk society actions typically begin with health dangers and threats to life, they often end by questioning the morality of specific ways of life.”  ...

Works cited in these notes:

Cohen, S. (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and the Rockers. Oxford: Martin Robertson

Goode, E. and N. Ben Yehuda (1994) Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. Oxford: Blackwell

Hall, S., C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke and B. Robert (1978) Policing the Crisis. London: Macmillan

McRoobie, A. and S. Thornton (1995) ‘Re-thinking Moral Panics for Multi-mediated Social Worlds’, British Journal of Sociology 46(4): pp. 559-74.

Ungar, S. (2001) ‘Moral Panic versus the Risk Society: The Implications of Changing Sites of Social Anxiety,’ British Journal of Sociology 52(2): pp. 271-91.

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