Rethinking 'Moral Panic' for Multi-Mediated Social Worlds

TLDR

The concept of moral panic, rooted in sociology of deviance and mass media, has become a staple journalistic term describing media‑driven social reactions that shape public debate. The article calls for revising the construction of moral panic to reflect media expansion and the participation of diverse actors, noting a shift in traditional social control mechanisms. The findings show that folk devils are less marginalized, gaining vocal support in mainstream media while their interests are defended by niche and micro‑media.

Abstract

It is now over twenty years since the well-established sociology of deviance along with the emergent sociology of mass media produced the concept of 'moral panic'. The various studies of youth culture, drugtakers and the media reaction to these and other phenomena produced some of the most important work in post-war British sociology. This article argues that it is now time that every stage in the process of constructing a moral panic, as well as the social relations which support it, should be revised. lt suggests that more attention should be paid to the consequences of the great expansion of the media and to the many more participants involved in public debate (including, for example, commercial promotions departments and pressure groups). We argue that 'folk devils' are less marginalized than they once were; they not only find themselves vociferously and articulately supported in the same mass media that castigates them, but their interests are also defended by their own niche and micro-media. Finally, the article suggests that what were more stable points of social control have undergone some degree of shift, if not transformation. 'Moral panic' is now a term regularly used by journalists to describe a process which politicians, commercial promoters and media habitually attempt to incite. It has become a standard interview question to put to Conservative MPs: are they not whipping up a moral panic as a foil to deflect attention away from more pressing economic issues? It has become a routine means of making youth-orientated cultural products more alluring; acid house music was marketed as 'one of the most controversial sounds of 1988' set to outrage 'those who decry the glamorization of drug culture'.l Moreover, as moral panics seem to guarantee the kind of emotional involvement that keeps up the interest of, notjust tabloid, but broadsheet newspaper readers, as well as the ratings of news and true crime television, even the media