Fisk-Memo10a

__Moral Panic & Deviance__ Stanley Cohen first described the concept of moral panic in his 1972 publication, “Folk Devils and Moral Panic” ⁠, as an event in which a “condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.” (p. 9). The result of an examination of British youth countercultural groups, the “Mods” and “Rockers” in the 1964, Cohen demonstrated the construction of social problems as worthy of constructivist sociological attention. Drawing on Marxism, Hall (1978)⁠ later extended the concept of moral panic to describe a mechanism by which the state masks crises of capitalism, and the subsequent broadening of state authority, allowing elites to maintain power. Additionally, Hall describes moral panics as escalating in a “signification spiral” occurring as activities are linked to the emerging social problem, amplifying the perceived threat. Following Hall's work, while the concept increasingly gained influence among British sociologists, Hall's work drew criticism for failing to outline a method for determining the disproportionality between “actual” threat level and public response. Focusing on a seeming proliferation of moral panics in Britain through the late 1980s, Jenkins (P. Jenkins, 1992)⁠ developed an interest group based theory of moral panics which centers on tensions between groups of influential claims-makers with specific political agendas, while still maintaining conceptual space for the work of Hall. In the first significant American contribution to moral panic literature, Goode & Ben-Yehuda (1994)⁠ incorporated social movement literature into their discussion of moral panic, framing moral panics as a tool used by grassroots organizations to gain media attention. Through framing issues as a dichotomy between good and evil, such groups sensationalize potential social problems, feeding into moral panics. Additionally, Goode & Ben-Yehuda draw distinctions between a grassroots model, interest group model and elite-engineered model of moral panic, largely favoring the interest group model. Following Goode & Ben-Yehuda, an increasing number of American sociologists began utilizing the concept of moral panic. Focusing on the role of media in the construction of moral panics, Thompson (1998)⁠ steers the reader away from the models of Hall, describing moral panics as a Durkheimian “social fact.” Choosing to draw attention to the ways in which media constructs “new crimes” and “new victims,” Best (1999)⁠ argues that through the act of naming incidents of crime, the media constructs instances of a growing trend. In another work released in the same year, Glassner (1999)⁠ seeks to understand why Americans fear that which, in comparison to more significant threats, is relatively harmless. Glassner too focuses on the role of the media, implicating them in a cycle of misplaced fear. Contemporary studies of moral panics have begun to examine the growing moral panics surrounding video gaming and participatory culture (H. Jenkins, 2006)⁠, along with cybercrime (Wall, 2008)⁠.

__Potential Footholds:__ __Citations:__ Best, J. (1999). Random violence how we talk about new crimes and new victims. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 * Foucault, discourses & moral panic
 * Methods of determining disproportionality (conflict with Foucault?)
 * Enunciatory Communities – double binds & moral panic
 * Moral panic as strategically useful to, but not consciously constructed by, elites
 * The role of TECHNOLOGY in the construction/shaping of moral panic

Cohen, S. (1980). Folk devils and moral panic : the creation of the mods and rockers. Oxford: Martin Robertson.

Glassner, B. (1999). The culture of fear : why Americans are afraid of the wrong things. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Goode, E., & Ben-Yehuda, N. (1994). Moral panics : the social construction of deviance. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, USA: Blackwell.

Hall, S. (1978). Policing the crisis : mugging, the state, and law and order. Critical social studies. London: Macmillan.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. NYU Press.

Jenkins, P. (1992). Intimate enemies : moral panics in contemporary Great Britain. Social problems and social issues. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Thompson, K. (1998). Moral panics. Key ideas. London; New York: Routledge.

Wall, D. (2008). Cybercrime and the Culture of Fear. Information, Communication &; Society, 11(6), 861-884.