Notes from “Risks, Raves and the Ecstasy Panic: A Case Study in the
Subversive Nature of Moral Regulation” by Sean P. Hier
Published in the Canadian Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp.
33-57 (2002)
“[...] in every society the production of discourse is at once
controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of
producers who role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over
its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality ...[but], as
history constantly teaches us, discourse is not simply that which translated
struggles or systems of domination, but is a thing for which and by which there
is struggle [...] discourse is the power which is to be seized (Foucault,
1981:52-53)
Summer of 2000: “heightened media
attention concerning rave dance parties held in the city of Toronto ,
Ontario , Canada ”
- context: deaths of three young adults who had taken ecstasy in 1999.
- Kieran Kelly, August 1999; Allan Ho, October 1999; and a 3rd youth who died at a warehouse party in August 1999
- following initial coverage, TO city council unanimously passes “The Protocol” as suggested by the Toronto Dance Safety Committee
- The Protocol: “offered several guidelines designed
with the intention of regulating raves in
- in particular, regulations having to do with safety/adequacy of venues
- “generally accepted by organizations representing rave communities”
- “a progressive and valuable instrument capable of facilitating a greater degree of safety for ravers”
- a coroner’s inquest is convened
- as the coroner’s inquest gets underway, TO Mayor Mel Lastman reverses course and bans raves from city property.
“In the ensuing weeks, raves became
an object of contestation and debate, as several city representatives
intensified their efforts to terminate raves under the auspices of the
“Entertainment Gatherings Protocol.”
·
However, the discourse “evaded a direct focus on
the leisure space of the rave, alternatively highlighting the purported dangers
associated with the use and distribution of ecstasy.”
·
“an interesting case study for the sociologies
of moral regulation and moral panic”
“[...] efforts to regulate, control
and ultimately terminate raves in Toronto
assumed the form of a moral panic constructed through a risk-based mode of
problematization [...] As the coroner’s inquest into the death of Allan Ho
commenced, the makings of a classic moral panic were in place.”
- A discourse was constructed “centered on the risks and dangers associated with ecstasy use”
- BUT: “as the newspaper coverage multiplied [...] numerous [rave] organizations successfully subverted the moralizing discourse in the mainstream newspaper media through their engagement with a wider diversity of media outlets.”
- important for sociologists interested in moral panic and moral regulation
- “problematizes media discourse as a heterogeneous site of contestation and struggle”
- “highlights the relational aspect of governance”
- “treats social actors as dynamic agents capable of penetrating and contesting moralized political projects.”
Rethinking
Moral Panic
·
The seminal texts: Cohen (1972) and Hall et al.
(1978)
·
Moral Panic: “how the media serve to
disproportionately propagate social anxieties in relation to the actual threat
posed by the ideological embodiment of generalized social insecurities – folk
devils.”
·
Cohen sought to understand “how particular
interest groups [police] emerge to label as deviant vulnerable social groups”
and how exaggerated ‘rumour stories’ (Victor, 1998), spread through sensational
media, culminate in unexpected moral panic
·
In reaction, Hall et al argue that moral panics
are not unexpected at all – moral panic is a mechanism, “actively and
consciously manipulated by the ruling elite to mystify or re-articulate deeper
crises in the capitalist system.”
o
Gramsci’s theory of hegemony: the media do not
produce ideology, but rather, the content and form of the media reproduce
existing power relations
o
IE, moral panic is a tool that ruling classes
can use to “‘orchestrate hegemony’ by manipulating the media who, in turn, reproduce
structures and relations of domination” and shape society
Recent scholarship regarding moral
panic:
·
regarding how folk devils are selected and
presented in media
·
NB, the expansion and diversification of media
·
and “niche and micro media”
·
McRobbie and Thorton, 1995:
o
note “the increasing resiliency of folk devils”
o
note that moral panic is no longer an
“unintended outcome of journalistic practice...” rather it “seems to have
become a goal”
·
Therefore, the question is not “What is the
panic really about?”
·
Rather: “interrogate the social bases for which
an increased pattern of problematization has occurred in recent times [and] the
socio-historical antecedence of a heightened sense of risk consciousness” [...]
and “how socially constructed problems are discursively transformed into a set
of risks and dangers which serve political – and morally regulative – ends.”
The author draws from “emerging
sociologies of risk and governance”
·
Corrigan and Sayer 1985; Castel 1991; Douglas 1992; Vlaverde 1994; Furendi 1997; Hunt 1999;
Wall 2000
·
“Post-moral techniques” – Moore and Valverde,
2000
The author argues that these
post-moral techniques serve the purposes of the ruling elite is via “discursive
constructing a set of risks and dangers”
- rarely do the ruling classes direct the moral techniques upon the subjects themselves, on the “actions or agency of ‘moral deviants’”
- rather, people are called upon to “enter into a process of self-governance” to minimize the risks and dangers thought to be inherent to an activity or behaviour
- If / when this does not happen, the discourse of risk and danger gives leeway to the regulating body to act “in place of the deviants’ ‘inadequate care of the self’”
Hier’s paper is in two parts.
- Show how the framework for a moral panic was established
in
·
“through construction of a hybrid risk
discourse”
·
namely, “how the discourse of a risk-based
problematization focusing on the social space of the rave coalesced with one
centered on illegal drug ab/use”
·
and show how Toronto ’s Mayor and Police Chief, and chief
coroner, “incited moral panic as a political strategy with the purpose of
distracting the city from matters pertaining to liability and blame” by tapping
into fears of youth vulnerability and fears of youth being at risk
·
demonstrate the important role of “blame
avoidance [...] in the propagation of moral panic”
- Demonstrate how the ultimate outcome of the ecstasy panic “was contingent on oppositional groups’ ability to effectively response to claims-making and problematization in a differentiated public sphere comprised of competing ideological formations.”
·
“the discourse(s) designating as ‘a risk’ the
social location of the rave underwent a process of subversion, culminating in
the political redistribution of risk”
·
via an examination of alternative media
materials, show how rave organizations were able to “successfully counteract
termination efforts and initiate a process which led to the reversal of the
temporary ban in August, 2000”
Prelude
to the Panic: Raving in Toronto
- mid-1990s, raves grow in popularity in TO.
- Weber 1999:
- rave community = 10,000 people
- “growing as large as an estimated 50,000 only three years later (PartyPeopleProject, 2000)”
- no ecstasy deaths in
- NB: “Curiously [...] although in existence for nearly a decade, it was not until the late 1990s that raves made it on to the political agenda with a central priority concerned with interrogating the dangers and moral indignation associated with designer drug use.”
- “principal catalyst” for heightened attention in
media: death of three
Regarding health and safety,
“organizers and members of the rave community collaborated with a variety of
community health organizations to form the Toronto Dance Safety Committee
(TDSC)”
- they write and propose the Protocol for the Operation of Safe Dance Events / Raving
- guidelines regarding zoning, building codes, ventilation, security and other health / safety concerns as well as calling for drug information and health counseling to be made available within the rave venue
- passed unanimously on 15 December 1999, with “enthusiastic support” of mayor Mel Lastman
Raves are scheduled for March and
April 2000 at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE)
Operation Strike Force:
- The Toronto Police Service, under the direction of the new police chief Julian Fantino, establishes “Operation Strike Force”
- its mandate: “drug use and other rave-related issues (TPSR, 2000:1)”
- this marks the point (according to the author) when raves were deemed ‘worthy’ of the attention of the mainstream
Media coverage:
- MacLean’s (“
- raves are said to be “an entrenched part of youth culture”
- “rave drugs” such as ecstasy are “epidemic”
One week following: Mayor Mel
Lastman, with support of Julian Fantino and Jim Cairns, the Ontario deputy
chief coroner, announces he wishes to terminate the Protocol and have raves
banned from city property.
- centered on “the risks and dangers of ecstasy use at raves”
- intended to regulate raves “in an effort to distance the city from the responsibilities – and liabilities – associated with the potential hazards surrounding designer drug use.”
Data
Sources and Analytic Procedures
Assuming that mainstream newspapers
are a “discursive space where political agendas are constituted and
reconfigured (McRobbie and Thornton 1995; Hay 1996; Knight 1998a, 1998b;
Carroll and Ramer, 1999)...
- three sources of data are used
- “hard newspaper stories (N=192) in
- two local papers and two papers with national distribution
- Technique: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
- “to demonstrate how moral panic was utilized as a political strategy with the ultimate intention of regulating raves”
- “other” media sources
·
including:
o
televised open forum aired on the Toronto-based
City TV music station
o
“a sophisticated report produced under the
auspices of the PartyPeopleProject” and submitted to city council
o
a compact disc produced featuring sound clips
from the mayor, the police chief etc
o
author’s personal observations and notes from
participation in the pro-rave rally held in front of city hall in August 2000
·
intended as a nod to the idea that discourse is
not just one-way
·
IE, it is possible to use media to subvert
discourse
- Proceedings from 3 city council meetings (December 1999, May and August 2000) where debates happened re raves on city property
·
important, because, according to Ungar (2001),
reliable indications of moral panic are hard to come by
·
these are “a gauge for which the power of
discourses constructed in the newspaper media, as well as subpolitical
counter-discourses [mass, niche and micro-media] can be assessed.”
Contested
Spaces and Problematized Patrons
·
Moral panic: authorities on the subject maintain
that they arise without provocation; manifested by an increased amount of media
scrutiny and public attention
Two weeks prior to inquest into
death of Allan Ho:
·
Julian Fantino’s “headline-attracting
proclamation”
·
open letter to Prime Minister Chrétien:
o
raves are “threatening the very fabric of
Canadian life” ... ecstasy use could become “an epidemic”
One week before the inquest into
the death of Allan Ho, Mayor Mel Lastman “attracted considerable news
attention” by surprise motion to ban raves from city property
·
this in spite of his endorsement of the protocol
only six months before
·
raves are thrust into the media with his
statement that, “[w]hen you get 8,000 people there you can’t control the drugs,
you can’t control what [people] do and you can’t control how crazy people get
once they take the drugs” (6 May 2000, National Post)
May 4 to May 11, 2000:
- raves are subject of 26 news stories in the corpus of data for this paper
- Early headlines:
- “Lastman wants ban on raves in
- “Fantino invites PM to TO rave: Asks Chrétien to
see ‘kids ... high on drugs’” (5 May,
- “Drugs, death and dancing” (7 May, Toronto Star)
- Headlines, “as media theorists have demonstrated,”
- summon cultural representations and scripts regarding social phenomena, provide general context for understanding, attributing social meaning to daily events...
- “retrieval cues”
- allow readers to identify with the aspects of the story that are in their immediate memory
- transmit social meanings; and reinforce certain representations in the minds of the reading public
- “The pairing of raves with drug use, consequently, can be understood as a discursive technique contributing to the construction of a retrieval cue centered on ‘rave drug parties,’ problematizing raves as sites for illegal drug ab/use and ravers as users of illegal drugs.”
- This was the dominant news frame in which the coroner’s inquest took place.
The inquest:
- officially directed into the circumstances of Allan Ho’s death, and other deaths of which only a few took place at raves
- however, “it quickly became apparent that the hearings were designed with the intention of interrogating the leisure space of the rave”
- note that not just individuals or groups are liable to be the object of moral panic; often spaces are the object of moral panics too (Adam, 1994) – ie, regulate the space in order to regulate the deviant behaviour
- raves: “leisure time-spaces embodying danger and necessitating spatial regulation”
Raves and use of ecstasy become
conflated in the discourse
- “[...] news reports began to focus, not on the dangers of ecstasy ab/use per se, but of ecstasy ab/use at raves.”
- eg: “Raves worsen ecstasy: Doctor” (10 May, Toronto Star)
- also 10 May, National Post – “an article detailing the indeterminate physiological effects of ecstasy use, drawing particular attention to rave promoters’ supposed high levels of drug tolerance.”
- and
- Globe and Mail, 18 May: a story detailing effects of ecstasy on human body, with diagrams
- From information about the dangers of drug taking, and “moralizing metanarratives” about illegal drug use, an image emerges:
- drug use at raves is not presented in comparison to recreational drug use among friends
- nor is drug use compared to any use other than at the all night dance party
- therefore, ecstasy ab/use is associated with the retrieval cue of “rave drug party” and becomes “a social space ingrained with danger”
10 May 2000:
- Toronto City Council “votes to rescind endorsement of city-sanctioned raves”
- temporary ban placed on all raves held at city property
- this decision comes at the urging of mayor Mel Lastman, who informed city council that “[the Protocol] has failed [...] raves are nothing more than a haven for drug pushers” (11 May 2000, The Globe and Mail)
- this “radical reversal” can be partly explained “as a response to the potentially volatile blame-generating events which had unfolded over the previous week”
- city councillors officially focus on “health and
safety of our youth in
- discourses related to risk serve to “solidify moral boundaries” by “attributing blame to certain identifiable persons or parties”
- discourses of risk “precipitate patterns of blame avoidance, inciting social actors to pass off the ‘hot potato’ in an effort to distance themselves, and the organizations they represent [...] from liability and blame”
- IE, the actions of city councillors, in changing course, “can be understood as an effort to avoid going on record as sanctioning illegal drug activity”
- Lastman’s reversal “can be understood as an attempt to reduce the risks associated with holding rave dance parties on city property.”
Risk
Equations and Rave Drugs
·
Coverage of raves in newspaper media intensifies
in weeks following city council’s decision to suspend raves
·
NB, this decision = “transfer[rance] [of]
responsibility to the coroner’s inquest and Police Chief Julian Fantino”
·
Coroner’s inquest:
o
deputy chief coroner testifies to 13
‘ecstasy-related’ deaths in Ontario since
1998, “making ecstasy the number one recreational drug used among Ontario teens”
o
13 May, National Post and Toronto Sun
o
This “marked a turning point in news coverage,
whereby problematization of the leisure space of the rave merged with the image
of the ‘rave drug’ and an accelerated emphasis on ‘risk equations’ concerning
the uncertainties of ingesting ecstasy at
raves”
·
Why the emphasis on rave drugs?
o
“a means to circumvent the difficulties
surrounding the delineation of the pervasiveness and indeterminacy of ecstasy
intake”
§
NB that pure ecstasy is actually quite a safe
drug
§
but that most of what is sold on the street is
not pure
o
Note that in 1999 the Ontario Student Drug Use
Survey concluded that only 7% of respondents (grades 7 – 13) had tried ecstasy
in past 12 months; compared with 59% using alcohol and 24.4 using marijuana
o
Note too that Adam and Smart (1997) report that
rave attendance is not high among Ontario
students
o
The claim of an ‘epidemic’ of ecstasy use is
suspect
“Informed by the proceedings of the
inquest” the TPS develop the Entertainment Gatherings Protocol in preparation
for Julian Fantino’s report to city council in August 2000, when the issue of
raves would again be debated.
Entertainment Gatherings Protocol
(EGP):
- a near replica of the Protocol developed months before
- designed to regulate, for instance, drug use, water availability, security
- ie, factors pertaining to the “risk equation” (TPSR, 2000:3)
- the major difference between the EGP and the Protocol:
- according to the EGP, a “designated Unity Paid Duty Co-coordinator” was to determine the number of paid off-duty officers needed to be present to securitize the rave
- TPS were given discretionary power to determine the number that of officers that the promoter would have to employ (prior to the temporary ban, it was 1 officer to 500 patrons)
- “What this essentially equated to was a mechanism to drive the operating costs of raves so high that promoters would be unable to comply with the guidelines.”
- Footnote 10: “The EGP represented a mechanism to
compensate for the lack of any regulatory structure facilitating the legal regulation of raves” – in
NOTE: Christopher Samojlenko –
promoter who hosted the rave where Allan Ho died – testified:
- he had attempted to comply with the guidelines in the Protocol
- however he was told by the TPS that he would require triple the number that the Protocol stipulated;
- also, if there were any drug infractions committed by any of the patrons, he would be arrested (12 May 2000, National Post, Toronto Star)
Problematization of social space of
rave + use of risk equations highlighting dangers of ecstasy intake = attempt
to shift onus of responsibility onto rave promoters.
- this was the strategy that would be used to regulate raves
At this time:
- the Ontario Raves Act 2000 is passing its second reading in provincial legislature
- raves on city property still under temporary ban
- “[...] the efforts of
- though they did not have mass support, they were able to overturn the city’s vote to endorse raves, only six months before
“Raves became the object of
increased scrutiny in the mainstream news media, as the element of risk itself
became problematized as a ‘moral technology’ (Ewald, 1991:207)”
- dance parties, and by association, ravers, at “at risk” according to this discourse
- rave was “offered up for moral interrogation and official speculation ...
- “... the culmination of which was the formation of a
moralizing regulatory apparatus directed at rave communities in
Subverting
Moral Panic
As the coroner’s inquest winds
down, another, opposing, thread of discourse emerges: the necessity for drug
information / education
- came from the revelation that, out of the 13 ‘ecstasy
related’ deaths in
- “news overage increasingly problematized responsible drug use and the necessity of drug information”
- “...yet it did so within the discursive context of risk equations and rave drugs”
Media
Strategies
June 1, 2000: The coroner’s jury
unexpectedly returns the verdict “raves should be confined to city property,
accompanied by a variety of recommendations to ensure the safety of ravers.”
“The ultimate fate of raves still
hinged on city council’s vote in August”
- Therefore rave organizations band together, “to amplify and make known the risks of driving raves underground”
- ie, venues without running water, without police supervision, poor ventilation....
“Subpolitics” (Beck 1992: 183:235)
- subpolitics = “politicizied activities of advocacy groups which come together to confront the problems and concerns pertinent to actors’ immediate living spaces”
- “[...] politicization of risk as a socializing mechanism can set in motion the activation of an alternative subpolitics [...]”
- Fraser 1996: “the ideal of participatory parity is better achieved by a multiplicity of publics than by a single public.”
Subpolitics in this case:
- Instance #1 -- 1 June 2000, a live television broadcast on MuchMusic
- major issue: that driving raves underground to poorly ventilated venues with little running water was the real danger to raves, not drugs;
- also “to examine the misconceptions surrounding raves
in
- “to examine the sensational mainstream media coverage ... of the weeks leading up to the close of the inquest”
- it “brought together key figures from the wider debate”
- it “granted an authoritative voice to ravers, as well as supporters of rave communities” who had been denied such a voice until that time
- it used “video coverage of the national and international rave scene.”
A detectable change in he
pre-eminent discourse surrounding raves, in the newspaper media surveyed by the
author
- the discourse was “re-problematized”
- note that the argument being used is based on the risks of driving raves underground
- “newspaper coverage in the sampled sources increasingly separated the public/legal from the private/underground rave”
- “newspaper reporting warned of the dangers of over-regulating raves to the point where promoters are forced to seek alternative, unsupervised venues”
Subpolitics instance #2:
- CD produced by Toronto-based hiphop group Nefarious
- “laced with sound clips by Julian Fantino and Mel Lastman”
- Called Strike Back
- Uses the sample: “I didn’t know what a rave party was... I thought we could control them”
- “achieved considerable news attention” in the period leading up to the city council vote
EGP becomes publicly known in the
weeks prior to the city council vote.
Bill 73 is advancing in provincial legislature.
In response: Toronto ’s rave communities release 36 page
report under the name PartyPeopleProject
- contests the EGP and Bill 73 on 3 points
- 1 - no way to distinguish between raves and, for example, wedding anniversaries,
- 2 – violation of rights under Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, of assemble and association
- 3 – that over-regulating raves would drive them underground
Examples of discourse:
- Globe and Mail, 1 August 2000: “Event operators fear these rules, which are deliberately vague, give latitude to police to play favorites with operators and to force the defacto closing of an event by imposing a huge policing bill, possibly at the last minute.”
Police attempts to regulate raves
via the mechanism of requiring a certain number of police officers, at
discretion of police, but expense of promoters – this was an attempt to avoid
violating the Charter
- in media coverage, this was “discursively re-articulated in the form of a threat of driving raves underground by imposing costs too great for promoters to meet, in turn escalating the risk associated with raving.”
2 June, 2000: Mayor Mel Lastman
states that he “would only support raves on city-owner property if the province
passed legislation permitting patrons to be searched for drugs and weapons (Toronto
- Weaver, 1998: actions of politicians should be understood as motivated by a desire to avoid blame for unpopular decisions, rather than to claim credit for popular ones.
- Lastman was an enthusiastic participant in the debate before, but now backs away... transfers possibility of risk onto the province
The PPP report draws “attention
both to the matter of driving the costs of raves too high and prohibiting raves
outright” -- subverts the discourse of ravers at risk; substitutes in the risks
of driving raves underground.
- IE, if raves are banned from city property, “liability would still rest with the city”
“Blame avoidance” – responsibility
for the regulation of raves is being passed off between different government
agencies so as not to be held liable for raves
“As an oppositional subpolitics
achieved greater resonance with the sampled news media, Mayor Lastman retracted
from his earlier position and declared: “All we want is to set from rules” (3
August 2000, National Post); “Nobody here wants to spoil anybody’s fun. Nobody here wants to stop anybody from
dancing” (3 August, Globe and Mail)
Direct
Protest
“momentum of a discursive
subpolitics continuing to build”
Toronto Dance Safe Committee and
PartyPeopleProject join forces for a protest outside Toronto City Hall
- estimated 12,000 – 20,000 people attend
- “reinforcing the universal rave philosophy of Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
- “present rave culture in a favorable – and victimized – light.”
“The efficaciousness of subpolitical
mobilization which culminated in a form of direct protest was nowhere more
readily seen than in Lastman’s efforts to bring raves back to supervised
venues.”
- he leads the movement to “re-sanction raves in city spaces”
- 2 August 2000: Lastman urges city councillors to accept the recommendations of the coroner’s inquest
- vote in favour, 50-4
“The subpolitical movement that
developed around raving in Toronto ,”
sometimes in association with other organizations, “subverted the moralizing
discourse constructed to characterize raves as risks.”
- did so by amplifying the risks associated with banning raves from city spaces
- “rave was problematized and re-problematized in the samples newspaper sources”
- “city representatives scrambled to distance themselves from positions of responsibility concerning the potential hazards which had come to be associated with raves”
- early discourse: “risk calculus concerning ecstasy ab/use”
- oppositional subpolitics “served to subvert the moralizing discourse, re-allocating the onus of responsibility squarely with those parties most intent on avoiding blame.”
Conclusion
Foucault:
- insights into “mechanics and mechanisms of power”
- how power is channeled in a “disjointed and multilateral fashion”
- “microphysics of power”
- For Foucault, government = place where techniques of domination (exercising of power) and techniques of the self (the active reception of power) intersect
- Power acts through agents, not upon them
This view is instructive for
understanding “the complex relationship that exists today between dispersed
social agents, a fragmented media, representation and reality, set against the
backdrop of the formation and consolidation of moral panic.”
- Folk devils are not passive social agents
- They are not haplessly demonized in the media
- Folk devils “can and do fight back”
Note that ravers needed money to
mount their defense, and they, as a group, tended to be homogeneous; “over-emphasizing
the micro-physics of power leaves little room for an appreciation of, and
sensitivity to, the structural bases of privilege and oppression (Hartsock,
1987; Alcoff, 1990)”
Traditional definitions of moral
panic are not sufficient to describe “proliferation and fragmentation of the
mass, niche and micro media and the multiplicity of voices” that now come
together to create ‘moral panic’
- “labyrinthine web”
- not monolithic
“Contemporary formulations of moral
panic must explicate the intimate connection [...] between diverse media
outlets, politics and the wider socio-economic environment.”
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