Moral panics and digital-media logic: Notes on a changing research agenda

Abstract

This research note critically comments on the lack of attention that moral panic scholars are devoting to the ways in which changing digital media formats are reshaping the dynamics of interaction involved in public claims-making, modes of audience engagement, and techniques of regulation and control. Angela McRobbie and Sarah Thornton’s seminal deconstruction of conventional moral panic studies is used as a point of departure to supplement the logic of mass mediation with insights into some of the structuring principles that ground the logic of digital mediation.

Social media and moral panics: Assessing the effects of technological change on societal reaction

“…technologies (for example, see Flores-Yeffal et al, 2019;Hier, 2018;Marwick, 2008;Wright, 2017). Despite their insight and contributions, knowledge of social media's diverse effects remains scattered and fragmentary.…”

“…Despite repeated calls for deeper engagement with technological changes (Critcher, 2017; Mawby and Gisby, 2009), existing work has either remained silent or under-represented their diverse effects. Concerning the former outcome, in his recent research note, Hier (2018: 9) claims that moral panic scholars have neglected digital communications and continue to privilege mass-broadcasting in their analyses. When technological change is discussed, received accounts are partial and incomplete.…”

“…Accentuating such dynamics is not intended to dismiss received perspectives but to invigorate them, promoting more holistic consideration of the implications of new media. To be sure, a handful of works have provided commentary on or case studies of social media and cognate technologies (for example, see Flores-Yeffal et al, 2019; Hier, 2018; Marwick, 2008; Wright, 2017). Despite their insight and contributions, knowledge of social media’s diverse effects remains scattered and fragmentary.…”

Youth- and Crime-Related Political Claims in Comparative Perspective

“…On the other hand, the media picture and logic have changed since the early studies of “moral panics” in the 1960s-1970s (Hier, 2019). Some studies have found evidence for positive framing of youth, although this often applies for other issues than crime and violence (Lepianka, 2015; Levinsen & Wien, 2011).…”

Digital Ethnography in an Age of Information Warfare: Notes from the Field

“…Digital communities and social media platforms followed suit, and tactics to surveil discourse or modify and censor it are now routine in Web 2.0 environments (Kavanaugh and Maratea 2016; Kavanaugh and Biggers 2018). While Hughey and Daniels (2013) note that such tactics were initially enacted to promote (or force) greater civility in digital spaces, as Sean Hier (2019, 8) has observed, “the rise of surveillance [in] social media has [also] contributed to the shaming of ordinary people for minor transgressions. Be they very public, ‘synoptic’ episodes, such as the rapid and vicious shaming of Justine Sacco, who in December 2013 set off a firestorm when she tweeted Going to Africa.…”