Moral Panics Essay

This essay will provide examples of what a moral panic is and will be applied to a certain example from other the past ten years. The essay will also discuss the theorist Stanley Cohen and also the work of Kenneth Thompson. I will also be talking about the Bandwagon effect and how a certain topic creates moral panic. The example that I will be using is the sexual abuse investigation; Operation Yewtree.

The theory of moral panics is defined by Stanley Cohen (1972, p. 9) as a condition, episode, person or group of persons that emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests. Cohen also describes moral panics that eventually after time, they disappear, submerge or deteriorates and they become less visible. When looking at moral panics over the past 70 years or so, Thompson (1998, p. 1) summarised what moral panics were most effective and apparent in each decade since the 1950s. In this decade there was a panic about the effects on young people’s morals due to the amount of time spent in coffee bars. In the 1960s, the ‘sexual permissiveness’, was believed to be having a subversive impact on traditional family values and feminists were accused of being bra-bungers who would undermine family life. An in the 1970s, there was a moral panic of young black muggers who became the focus of a panic about law and order. However, skipping two decades, in the 1990s and early 2000s, there has been a significant change as there has been an increasing rapidity of the succession of moral panics, as now, one barely finishes before another takes place. (Thompson, 1998, p. 2) Earlier panics tended to be focused on a single group but in modern times, moral panics can now not only target certain groups but can also be broader.

The key elements of a moral panic according to the Cohen’s definition are; that something/someone is defined as a threat to values or interests, as threat is depicted in an easily recognisable form by the media, there is a rapid build-up of social concern, there is a response from authorities or opinion-makers and the panic recedes or results in social changes. (Thompson, 1998, p. 8) One example from the past decade, is the scandal of Operation Yewtree, the investigation of Jimmy Saville and other celebrities who were abusing both children and adults throughout their career.

Jimmy Saville was the first of many in the public eye, who was revealed, leading to other celebrities (Max Clifford, Stuart Hall and many more) to be unravelled as well. In October 2012, a year after Saville’s death, an ITV documentary alleged that Savile was a prolific sexual predator who for decades had exploited his BBC status to abuse teenage girls. Due to this, audiences / victims came out and told their stories. After the stories came out about Savile, many other allegations were made about other celebrities who were predominant figures in the British media. This can be described as the classic moral panic as due to one person, the rest of the population was thrown into a breakdown of social order and more and more hidden victims came out, revealing their stories. As many others were being accused with little evidence and the overall allegations and investigations came together; Operation Yewtree. The concept of moral panic, and this certain scandal, there are fluctuations that take place in the degree of concern over a given issue (for example Operation Yewtree) over time, from one year to a decade to another. (Goode and Ben- Yehuda,1994, p. 103) It can be seen through the Operation Yewtree investigation as it has always been very prominent in the news since 2012 and still is in 2018, with new allegations unfolding quite often. It is quite apparent that everyone knows about the scandal, just like other moral panics; Ebola, terrorism or gun control. This certain moral panic is also about trust in public bodies, in the BBC, politicians, the health service, the police and social workers. We blame the public bodies that are meant to protect us, to uphold the highest standards. In doing so, we look away from the other troubling things facing society today: the increasing gap between rich and poor, prisons bursting at the seams, children growing up in poverty, asylum seekers living in detention centers. (Cree, 2012)

Operation Yewtree applies to the theory of moral panics as it has created members of the public to feel dread and fear as there is more awareness about sexual abuse. Whether members of the public have ever been in that situation or not, and it has made people more aware that there are many people in society who take advantage of others. The social implications that it has had is that, not only have people disregarded Savile and the other celebrities, they have become household names that were once much-loved but now evil monsters. Since the scandal, the names of the celebrities have now become taboo and if their names are talked about, society disregards the celebrities and the topic, almost instantly. This can be applied to the theory of the Bandwagon effect, as because due to one widespread pattern of behaviour purely happens, more people catch on because ‘everyone else is doing it’. (Bandwagon Effect, 2016)

The moral panic of Operation Yewtree overlaps with the theory of social problems and as while some social problems are based on the harmful behaviour of certain individuals who may designated as deviant, (criminals, rapists, murderers), many social problems do not contain the deviance component, for example aging, the Greenhouse effect. (Goode and Ben- Yehuda,1994, p. 103) When relating this to the moral panic of Operation Yewtree, Savile and the other celebrities in the scandal are represented as deviant.

In order for everyone to know about this moral panic, at the centre of the scandal is the commercialised media. Not only does the commercialised media be in the centre of this certain moral panic but is in the centre of every other panic you could think of. This can be seen through the moral panics of terrorism or gun control, as where everywhere you look, the most popular stories on TV, in newspapers, on websites and social media, it is the only thing that is broadcasting these certain panics and is an important place for people to receive the information they want to know. A recent example of this is the Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting, as the gun control protests were being broadcasted all over the world. The students of the school and other supporters of the protest used the commercialised media to get their point across and to reach a worldwide audience. However, when Operation Yewtree was revealed, social media was not a big part of our everyday lives, but newspaper and TV coverage was important to the stories as it provided the information that audiences wanted to know.  There are now dedicated pages on large news websites, (BBC, Mirror Online, HuffPost UK) about Operation Yewtree and is very important to readers as it is the hub to receive this important information.

In conclusion, when something happens which is either bad or good, the only thing that makes the news publicised on many platforms, is the response to the threat. Whether it be a good response or a bad response, the number of people talking about it or tweeting about it, dictates how popular the story can be and how many people will be interested. This side of moral panics can be applied to Operation Yewtree as when something new is revealed, if it does involve important information, then it will reach audiences across the country. However, if the story is a carry on from something or something that is less important, audience might not talk about it as much, but it will still be reported on TV or in newspapers. Overall, moral panics are important to the way we live our everyday lives. Therefore, this dictates what we talk about to other people, how we stereotype and perceive other citizens and what we focus on when on social media, watching TV or reading the newspapers. The theories of the Bandwagon effect and the Water Cooler effect are very apparent when applying theory to moral panics.

Bibliography

Bandwagon Effect (2016). (1st ed.) Oxford University Press

BBC. (2016). Jimmy Savile and the BBC: Dame Janet Smith Report’s Key Sections. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35657868.

Cohen, S. (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. London. MacGibbon and Kee.

Cree, V. (2012). The Jimmy Savile Revelations Are Causing a Classic Moral Panic. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2012/nov/23/jimmy-savile-moral-panic.

Goode, E., & Ben-Yehuda, N. (1994). Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. (1st Edition) Oxford. Blackwell.

HuffPost UK. (2018). HuffPost UK: Operation Yewtree. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/operation-yewtree/

Mirror Online. (2018). Mirror Online: Operation Yewtree. Retrieved from https://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/operation-yewtree.

Parker, E. (2015) Contemporary Moral Panics. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/xbrbenbzvhvm/contemporary-moral-panics/

Thompson, K. (1998, 2005) Moral Panics. (1st Edition). London. New York. Routledge.