Abstract:This article is a contribution to widening the focus of moral panic studies. Our aim is to advance recent attempts to link moral panic studies to the criminological literature on moral regulation. We argue that moral panics should be conceptualized as volatile expressions of long-term moral regulation processes. To substantiate these conceptual and theoretical arguments, we examine claims-making activities about the threat posed by British youth who don hooded tops in public places.
“…For example, Hier () initially conceptualized efforts to regulate rave dance parties in the City of Toronto in terms of a perceived breakdown in ongoing efforts to regulate youth leisure activities. Hier, Walby, Lett, and Smith () subsequently demonstrated how attempts to ban hooded tops from public locations in Britain derived from perceived breakdowns in the regulatory power of the Anti‐Social Behavior Act as a state mechanism of moral regulation. Lundström () applied the framework to claims about benefit fraud in Sweden, Siltaoja () to unethical business practices in Finland, Critcher () to anti‐doping policies in sport, Carlson () to radically motivated police violence and Smoczynski and Fitzgerald () to polish migrants in the UK.…”
Section: Moral Panic and Moral Regulationmentioning
This article compares two analytical frameworks ostensibly formulated to widen the focus of moral panic studies. The comparative analysis suggests that attempts to conceptualize moral panics in terms of decivilizing processes have neither substantively supplemented the explanatory gains made by conceptualizing moral panic as a form of moral regulation nor provided a viable alternative framework that better explains the dynamics of contemporary moral panics. The article concludes that Elias's meta-theory of the civilizing process potentially provides explanatory resources to investigate a possible historical-structural shift towards the so-called age of (a)moral panic; the analytical demands of such a project, however, require a sufficiently different line of inquiry than the one encouraged by both the regulatory and decivilizing perspectives on moral panic.
“…For example, Hier () initially conceptualized efforts to regulate rave dance parties in the City of Toronto in terms of a perceived breakdown in ongoing efforts to regulate youth leisure activities. Hier, Walby, Lett, and Smith () subsequently demonstrated how attempts to ban hooded tops from public locations in Britain derived from perceived breakdowns in the regulatory power of the Anti‐Social Behavior Act as a state mechanism of moral regulation. Lundström () applied the framework to claims about benefit fraud in Sweden, Siltaoja () to unethical business practices in Finland, Critcher () to anti‐doping policies in sport, Carlson () to radically motivated police violence and Smoczynski and Fitzgerald () to polish migrants in the UK.…”
Section: Moral Panic and Moral Regulationmentioning
This article compares two analytical frameworks ostensibly formulated to widen the focus of moral panic studies. The comparative analysis suggests that attempts to conceptualize moral panics in terms of decivilizing processes have neither substantively supplemented the explanatory gains made by conceptualizing moral panic as a form of moral regulation nor provided a viable alternative framework that better explains the dynamics of contemporary moral panics. The article concludes that Elias's meta-theory of the civilizing process potentially provides explanatory resources to investigate a possible historical-structural shift towards the so-called age of (a)moral panic; the analytical demands of such a project, however, require a sufficiently different line of inquiry than the one encouraged by both the regulatory and decivilizing perspectives on moral panic.
“…By characterizing moral panics as irrational, proponents of these contentions are unable to explain situations where threats have been consciously orchestrated and employed as discursive devices to generate moral panics in pursuit of specific political aims. Some authors have demonstrated that far from being irrational, episodic, and fleeting phenomena, moral panics are, in fact, part of the repertoire of governmentality (Hier, ; Hier, Lett, Walby, & Smith, ). Panics seek to organize behaviors and attitudes to conform to particular regimes of moral regulation.…”
Section: Moral Panics: a Critical Interrogationmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The above image not only encapsulates the alleged destructive connotations and debauchery that are associated with homosexuality, but also embeds an urgent need for practices and programs that will ensure moral restoration. As Hier et al (, p. 260) point out: Every moral panic has its folk devil: the personification of evil … When folk devils are revealed to the public in a stereotypical fashion through mainstream media reporting, they are constructed as threats to the social/moral fabric requiring immediate regulatory intervention.…”
Section: Media Frames Expert Opinion and Pathologization Of Homosexmentioning
The study analyzes media reports about homosexuality in Ghanaian media and the reactions that they engender among the public. It argues that politicized homophobia combined with moral entrepreneurship to produce influential circuits of social, moral, and political power that were deployed to elicit particular forms of subjectivity against homosexuality. The media stimulated and sustained homophobia and heterosexism, and provided a platform for politicians and other moral entrepreneurs to mobilize antipathy in support of reactionary and exclusionary interventions that are antithetical to the very essence of liberal democracy that the country professes. While the media cannot singlehandedly effect value and attitudinal change in support of inclusive citizenship, they have a frontline role in generating critical introspection and dialogic engagement with homosexuality.
“…For example, when a moral panic about British youth who don hooded tops in public places developed in 2005, claims making activities centered on the dangers that hooded youth pose to otherwise ordinary Britons in public places. As Hier, Lett, Walby, and Smith (2011) explain, the panic emerged when existing state and extra‐state moral regulation processes (e.g., ASBOs, ABCs, codes of respect) were perceived to be in a state of failure. Through these processes, routine discourses that call upon individuals to engage in responsible forms of self‐conduct to manage risk were transposed into collectivizing discourses of risk management.…”
Section: Moral Regulation and Moral Panicmentioning
The purpose of this article is to tighten the focus of moral panic studies by clarifying and elaborating on an analytical framework that conceptualizes moral panic as a form of moral regulation. The first part of the article explains why moral panic should be conceptualized as a form of moral regulation. The second part presents a rejoinder to Critcher's (2009) critique of the widening focus of moral panic studies. The third part elaborates on the conceptual relationship between the sociologies of moral panic and moral regulation by offering fresh insights into the sociological and political importance of moral panic as a technique of liberal government.
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