'Moral Panic' and Moral Language in the Media Author(s): Arnold Hunt Source: The British Journal of Sociology,

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Arnold Hunt

'Moralpanic' and moral language in the media

ABSTRACT This article provides a comprehensive survey of the use of the term 'moral panic' from its coinage in 1972 until the present day. It traces the evolution of the term in academic sociology and criminology, its adoption by the media in the mid1980s and its subsequent employment in the national press. It shows how and why the term changed its meaning, and how far its use in academic discourse affected its use in the media. The article traces the development of 'moral panic' in the media, where it was first used pejoratively, then rejected for being pejorative, and finally rehabilitated as a term of approval. It explains why the term developed as it did: how it enabled journalists to justify the moral and social role of the media, and also to support the reassertion of 'family values' in the early l990s. The article concludes by considering the relationship between 'moral panic' and moral language in general. This is a more speculaiive analysis of the term, drawing on the work of moral philosophers and attempiing to predict how 'moral panic' may develop in the future. 'Moral panic', I suggest, is an unsaiisfactory form of moral language which may adversely affect the media's ability to handle moral issues seriously.

KEYWORDS:Media; morality; moral panic

I first encountered the term 'moral panic' at a seminar in early modern historyin 1991.As I later discovered,it had been aroundfor nearlytwenty years and had alreadybecome firmlyestablishedin the literatureof sociology and criminology;but it was onlyjust beginning to find its way into wider circulation.I was curious, first about its applicationto the fields of social and culturalhistorywithwhich I wasconcerned, then about its background, its originaluse and its subsequentdevelopment.Despite the existence of a sizable body of literatureon the subject, most recently Erich of Moral Panic: The Social Construction Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda's Deviance (1994), whose useful distinctionbetween three different theories I have 'elite-engineered'and 'grassroots') of moralpanic ('interest-group', historyof gratefullyadopted here, there is no fully detailed or satisfactory the term. This articleattemptsto provideone, and to suggest, through an
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examinationof the variousmeaningsof the term, that sociologistsneed to be more rigorousin its use and more sensitiveto its hidden implications. In particular, I doubtwhetherGoode and Ben-Yehuda arejustifiedin treating it as a homogeneous concept and in attemptingto constructa grand unified theoryof moralpanic.A personalapologia seems necessary,as I am a historian,not a sociologist, uneasily awareof the tension between the empiricalmethod in whichI wastrainedand the more theoreticalapproach which I adopt here. This is intended as an interdisciplinary work, an encounter between two academic traditionsthat meet too seldom, to the disadvantage of both. While this articlewas being written,the problem of 'moralpanic' took on a new dimension. The term has appearedoccasionallyin the national pressfor at least ten years,but suddenlycame to prominencein 1993, as a surveyof the broadsheetnewspapers demonstrates. FT Profile,a computer databasecoveringmost of the nationalpressfrom the late 1980s,listseleven uses of the term in 1989, twelvein 1990, eight in 1991 and seventeen in 1992,but eighty-ninein 1993.This, as we shall see, has implicationsfor the academicuse of the term,for, asJeanAitchisonhas argued,newspapers do not initiatelinguisticchange so much as 'push the languagealong further in the directionin which it wasalreadygoing', and sociologistsmust therefore bear some responsibility for the use of 'moral panic' in the media. (Aitchison1994:19) The media'sheightened sensitivity to moralissuesmay be just a temporaryphase, one of a series of media debates about 'moral decline' that have gone on since the 1960s,flaring up and quicklydying down again. But in looking at 'moral panic' in the context of this wider debate on public morals, this articlewill also consider the possibilitythat the potent associationof moralitywith panic mayhave a permanenteffect on the moral languageused by the media.
1. 'INTEREST-GROUP' THEORY

Discussion of moral panic properlybegins with StanleyCohen's Folk Devils andMoralPanics (1972), a classicsociologicalstudyof the Modsand Rockers phenomenonof the mid-1960s.Cohen offered the followingdefinition of the term: Societies appearto be subject,everynow and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societalvalues and interests;its nature is presented in a stylizedand stereotypical fashion by the massmedia;the moral barricadesare manned by editors,bishops, politiciansand other right-thinking people; sociallyaccreditedexpertspronounce their diagnoses and solutions;waysof coping are evolvedor (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible. Sometimesthe object of the panic is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long

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enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight. Sometimes the panic passesoverand is forgotten,except in folkloreand collectivememory;at other timesit has more seriousand long-lastingrepercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy or even in the waythe societyconceivesitself. Severaldetailsof Cohen'sthesishaveprovedparticularly influential.The firstis the idea that everymoralpanic has its scapegoat,the 'folkdevil'onto whom public fearsand fantasiesare projected.The moralpanic must have an object;it must be about something. This does not mean that the folk devil is created by the moral panic. Cohen was at pains to point out that 'despite using termssuch as "panic" and analogiesfrom the studyof mass hysteriaand delusion'he did not mean to implythat the Modsand Rockers would not have existed if there had been no moral panic or 'would have gone awayif we had simplyignored them', only that turningthem into folk devils was an inappropriatesolution to the problem. That 'problem', however,wasnot the activities of the Modsand Rockers,or only in a limited and temporary sense; the underlyingcause of the moralpanic wasthe 'culturalstrainand ambiguity' causedbysocialchange.The objectof the moral panic wasnot so much the Modsand Rockersas the post-war affluenceand sexualfreedom that they represented; consequently,the Modsand Rockers were forgottenwithin a few years,and new folk devilsemerged to replace them. Recent writershave gone further than Cohen in emphasizingthe arbitrary selection of folk devils. Nowadays,the term 'folk devil' is more likely to be applied to vulnerablefigures such as unmarriedmothers or people with AIDS,or to contestablephenomena such as the satanicabuse of children, than to aggressively deviantor anti-socialgroups such as the Mods and Rockers.One linguisticresultof this has been the conflationof the moral panic and the folk devil. Single mothers,wroteJulie Burchillin the MailonSunday (15 August1993), 'havetakenoverfrom "drugpushers" (an equallyflorid, unrealisticmyth) as society'smain folk devil and moral panic'. This implies that the moral panic is not aboutthe folk devil; the moralpanic is the folk devil, or, to put it anotherway,the folk devilwould not be perceivedas a problem - might not even exist at all - without the moralpanic. Another influentialaspect of Cohen's thesis is the argumentthat moral panicsare generatedby the media,or by particular interest-groups (Cohen, following Howard Becker, calls them 'moral entrepreneurs') using the media to publicize their concerns. An example of this approach can be found in PhilipJenkins'srecent book Intimate Enemies: Moral Panicsin Contemporary GreatBritain (1992) which identified various interest-groups, including charities,the police and social workers,who made claimsabout the sexual and ritualabuse of childrenwhichwere then 'takenup by a sig nificant section of the mass media and presented as factual'. Cohen, however,laid particular stresson the media itself, as an 'especiallyimportant carrierand producerof moralpanics'.Mostcommentators, even those

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withinthe media, have tended to agree.As the Financial Times commented on 13 March1993: That the Britishmedia exercisea uniquelydecisive influence on national politicallife has been notablydemonstratedin recent days:in no other country would what has been termed the 'moral panic' over juvenile crime have providedthe basisof such a concerted campaignthat led to almostinstantaction on the part of the government. While this wasa causeof alarmto some writers,otherswere ebratethe powerof the pressto initiatea moralpanic on aninclined to celissue of public importance.'Name an issue',wrote MartinJacques in the Sunday Times on 7 March1993, and it is more than likelythat the newspapers have been responsiblefor making it happen: the moral panic over the state of society, policy . . . the royalfamily. . . It is no exaggerationto saythat economic withoutthe pressnone of these issueswouldhaveacquiredthe importancetheyhave. Perhapsthe most far-reaching aspect of Cohen's thesis, however,is the remark that 'the processesby which moralpanicsand folk devils are generateddo not date'. This has encouragedhistoriansto transport the concept of moral panic into other periods. Rob Sindall,for example, employsthe termas 'a useful analytical tool' in his studyof streetviolence in the nineteenthcentury, on the assumptionthat 'Cohen's model is ... over time', the only preconditionfor a moralpanic being the applicable existenceof a mass media capableof transmitting it. (Sindall1990:29) Historiansof the seventeenth centuryhave been particularly receptiveto the term, perhaps encouraged by the fact that a work of seventeenth-century history, Kai Erikson's Wayward Purztans (1966), wasone of Cohen'sown sourcesfor the study of deviance.DavidUnderdowndescribesthe Puritan reformationof Dorchester in the 1620sas 'pursuedwith an intensityborderingon a state of"moral panic"',with Puritanpreachersand magistrates in the role of moral entrepreneurs.Moralpanics, he suggests,are timeless:'smalltowns are smalltownsin any time and place', and Dorchesterin the 1620sis comparable to Brightonin the 1960s. (Underdown1985:52, Underdown 1992: x) John Morrillarguesthatin the 1650sthe gentrywere 'caughtin a "moral panic"' which,as in Cohen'smodel, wasmedia{Iriven, fuelled by 'the rapid growth of newspapersand pamphlets at a time of political uncertainty' (Morrill 1993:370-1). Christina Larnerpoints out thatwitch-hunts in early modern Scotland tended to occur at moments of political tension, often accompanying the transitionto a new regime, as in the late 1650s: 'The absence of a machineryfor lawand order . . . seems to have engendered an anxiety among the ruling classesamountingto a "moralpanic".' (Larner 1981: 198-9; see also Larner1984:64) Similarly, J.C. Davisargues that in periods of history when moral boundaries are undergoing wholesale reappraisal or revision,as,for instance,in the wakeof a revolution. . . moral uncertainty

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can lead to great anxiety or 'moral panic' and to the demand for a reassertionor redefinitionof moral boundaries. In the 1650s, he believes, there was a moral panic about antinomianand libertinesects such as the Ranters,generatedby a varietyof interest-groups includingprintersand publishers,royalistjournalists, and conservative sectariansusing the image of the Ranter'to police the sects' own boundaries, to induce conformity'.(Davis1986:96-8) Davis's workexposes one of the weaknesses of the 'interest-group' theory of moralpanic:a tendencyto concentrateon deep-seatedculturalcauses'religiousanxieties',a 'sense of dislocation',a fear of sexual inversionand a 'preoccupationwith order and disorder', to quote some of the explanations that Davisoffers - and to neglect local and particularcauses.As a result, moral panics can appearstrangelydivorcedfrom reality.An article in the Independent in May 1994 assumes that moral panics occur spontaneouslyand have no connection with real events: We are in the grip of a moralpanicaboutcrimeon television.Quitewhen it started,or who wasresponsible,nobody can be sure, but a classicpanic it most definitely is. Like some medieval plague, it springs from every sewerin a spontaneousoverflow,reachesfeverpitch, then mercifully subsides . . . The essentialelements of the moral panic are now all in place. No obvious beginning, no single individual responsible ... And, of course, most important,no evidence at all to supportthe case. In interpreting Cohen, Davis makes the revealing assumption that Folk Devilsand MoralPanicsis not about real deviance, or about real activities subsequentlyclassifiedas deviant,but about 'the manufactureof the chimaeraof the existence of those activities'; and this providesthe theoretical basisfor his controversial argumentthat the Rantersnever reallyexisted. While this is a misreadingof Cohen's work, certain passagesin the book, such as the remarkthat the situation'could take on a mythical,chimerical meaning' (1980: 171), could easilylend themselvesto such a misreading. Cohen has recognizedthe problemand acknowledges, in the preface to the 1980 edition of Folk DevilsandMoral Panics,that the book is guiltyof 'a certain timelessness,an unveiling of a set of consequencesinsulatedfrom historyand politics'.Some historianshavealso begun to growuneasyabout the indiscriminate use of the term:JohnSpringhall, for example, hesitates to describe the campaignagainst 'horrorcomics' in the 1950sas a 'moral panic', on the grounds that 'assigningeach successive"crisis" to the inclusive categoryof "moralpanic"risksdisregarding particular featuresof historical context, new technology, or social anxiety' (Springhall 1994). Others, however,continue to present moral panic as historicallytimeless. The most extreme statement of this view can be found in the preface to Goode and Ben-Yehuda's book, in which the 'fearsand concerns' underlyingmoralpanicsare said to be 'partand parcelof the human condition', an expressionof human frailty.We are all subjectto them; all societies are

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wrackedby them'. The samedeterminist viewof humanbehaviour,and disbelief in historicalchange, occur frequentlyin the media. The Independent (3 December 1992) reported the view of the Education Secretary, John Patten,that Britishsocietywasin a state of moral decline. Historiansmight take a different perspective,however,and argue that societyhas not become less orderlyand peaceable,thatthere havealways been areaswhere gangs of young thugshaveflourished.If they are right, Mr Patten and Mr Pascallmay simplybe a part of one of society'speriodic moral panics over an issue that never reallygoes away.
2. 'ELITE-ENGINEERED' THEORY

The second theory of moral panic is describedby Goode and Ben-Yehuda as the 'elite-engineeredmodel' and is developed at lerlgthby StuartHall and othersin Policing theCnsis: Mugging, theState, andLawand Order (1978). The authorsof Policing theCrisis quoted Cohen's definition of moralpanic with approval,commenting that the panic of 1972-3, when the national press began to use the term 'mugging'with reference to a perceivedepidemic of violent crime, fitted Cohen's definition 'in almost every detail'. However,theirmodel of moralpanicwasdesignedto plug some of the gaps in Cohen's use of the term: in particular,to explain where moral panics originatedandwhytheyoccurredwhen theydid. Cohen impliedthatmoral panics originatedin the media, in waysthat depended on establishedpatterns of crime reporting,on journalists'own perceptionsof a 'good story', or simply on the absence of any alternativenews; in short, 'the media created the news and imageswhich lent the cognitivebasisfor the panic'. Hall and his co-authors agreedthatthe mediawere 'amongthe most powerful forces in the shapingof public consciousnessabout topicaland controversialissues'.But they went on to argue that moral panics about law and order typically originatedin statementsby membersof the police and the judiciary,which were then amplified by the media. The media does not 'create' the news so much as 'reproduce and sustain' the dominant interpretationsof it, and can thus be said to function, consciouslyor not, as an instrumentof state control (Hall et al. 1978:220-2). The two theories of moral panic differ in other ways.Cohen adopts a studied neutralit in his discussionof moral panic, and although his own sympathies can quite easily be inferred, they are never spelt out. He refrains,too, from drawing firm conclusionsaboutthe 'policyimplications' of his work,merelycommentingthat 'differentreaderscan drawdifferent implications'and that 'sociologistsdo not have the power to stop such implicationsbeing made or acted upon'. The authorsof Policing the Cr7sis, on the other hand, incorporatein their definition of a moral panic the notion of an irrationalor unjustifiedresponse. 'Whenthe officialreaction to a person, group of personsor seriesof eventsis out of all preportion to the actualthreatoffered', and

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stress'suddenand dramatic' universally when the media representations aboveand beyond increases(in numbersinvolvedor events)and 'novelty', that which a sober, realisticappraisalcould sustain,then we believe it is (p. 16) to speakof the beginningsof a maralpanic. appropriate This is a much more partisan definition of moral panic, signalling an entirely different purpose; for whereas Cohen is pessimistic about the chances of breakingthe cycle of repeated moral panics, Hall and his coauthors regard their work as an 'intervention'in 'the struggle to change the structuresand conditions'by which moral panics are produced (p. x). theCnsis and conditions',Policing 'structures Bylayingstresson particular also calls into question the timelessnessof moral panics, their apparently endless recurrenceover the whole courseof history.It treatsthe succession of moral panics between the early 1960s and the late 1970s, between the emergence of moral panics and their incorporationinto a general panic about law and order, as an 'exceptionalmoment' in a long-termhistorical process. To use Marxist (more precisely, Gramscian)terminology, that process is the 'crisis of hegemony', the breakdownof consensus which forces the rulingclassto resortto new techniquesof exercisingcontroland repressingdissent. This marksanother departurefrom Cohen's original are far stricterin defining the historicalcirtheory.Hall and his co-authors cumstancesunder which moral panics occur, although they share with conof moralpanicsonce the appropriate Cohen a sense of the inevitability ditionsare met. Theydo not go so far as to suggestthatthe 'mugging'panic could not have occurredbefore the 1970s,but they argue that 'it makesa greatdeal more sense' than it wouldhavedone at an earlierperiod,because onlyby the 1970swere all the 'essentialconditions'in place. Otherleft-wing commentatorshave also tried to give the concept of moral panic greater historical specificity,though with slightly different emphases. Kate Marshall, for example, associatesmoral panicswith the economic recessionof the 1980sand the need to transferthe cost of the WelfareStateonto private families (Marshall1985). account of the 'elite-engineered'model is that Goode and Ben-Yehuda's and consciously'createa moralpanic about the ruling classes'deliberately 'an issue that they recognise not to be terriblyharmfulto the society as a whole' in order to divertattentionfrom more seriousproblems.As the New explained in December 1993, moral panics are 'diversionsfor Statesman is not those in power who prefer that the "socialand moral community" actutheCrisis examined too closelyfor fear it is found bankrupt'.Policing ally takes a less conspiratorialview of this process, pointing to 'evidence believed . . . that in this period the ruling classesthemselvessubstantially the definition of an emergent social crisiswhich they were propagating' reading alertsus to the fact (Hall et al. 1978:220). But the conspiratorial that, as far as Policingthe Crisisis concerned, moral panics are political phenomena and are generated,whether 'deliberatelyand consciously'or This is quite differentfrom the not, throughpoliticalandjuridicalactivity.

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view of FolkDevils and Moral Panics that moral panics are the product of 'culturalstrain and ambiguity'.As Cohen puts it, in reviewingthe differences between his theory of moral panic and that of Policing the Crisis,the level of explanation 'is shifted from social control agencies or culturesor vague allusionsto the "wider society"- to the specific operation of the state' (Cohen 1980:xxiii). This distinction between cultural and political models of moral panic mayseem dubious.The twocategories,afterall, are not mutuallyexclusive: for Cohen, political agents are incorporatedin the notion of a control culture,while for Hall and his co-authors,hegemony is as much a matter of culturalas of political dominance. However,Cohen also suggeststhat 'casesof masshysteria,delusion and panics'might providea framework for the studyof moralpanics,implyingthat the moralpanicwasa form of collective irrationality which must have deep culturalor psychologicalroots, and for which a purely political or ideological explanationwould be inadequate. (Cohen 1980:11)This is the sort of language,unattachedto any historicalperiod, that leads Hall et al. to reject the concept of a control culture as 'too imprecise', preferringinstead to set moral panics in the context of a specific moment in history and 'a specific type of political regime' (Hall et al. 1978:195).
3. 'GRASSROOTS' THEORY

Goode and Ben-Yehuda identifya third theorywhich stressesthe extent of popularparticipation in moral panics and which they term the 'grassroots model'. Accordingto this theory, 'politiciansand the media cannot fabricate concernwherenone existedinitially',and moralpanicsmusttherefore be founded on genuine public concern, reflected or magnified by the media, perhaps,but arisingmore or less spontaneously.This is a 'bottom up' rather than 'top down' theory of moral panic; the authorsof Policing theCrisis,by contrast,are scepticalabout 'thisseeminglyspontaneouspublic opinion' and argue that it is 'transmitted and constructedhigher up in the chain of communication'instead of being generatedfrom below (Hall et al. 1978:137;Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994:127). The 'grassroots'theory resembles the work of so-called 'realist criminologists'such as TrevorJones,BrianMacleanandJockYoung,co-authors of TheIslington CrimeSurvey(1986), who suggest that people's perceptions of crime 'are not based on moral panic and/or a regurgitationof media stereotypes,but bear a close relationship to the real facts about the areasin which they live'. Realistcriminologiststend to be unhappywith the term 'moral panic', identifying 'moral realism',rather than panic or hysteria, in people's attitudesto crime. However,they do not simplyreject the concept of moral panic. In their view, moral panic and moral realism are symptoms of the same problem, signs that crime really is on the
increase.

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The sameforceswhich makefor the increasein crimefuel a moralpanic about crime.Thatis, the real fear about crimeis intimatelyrelatedto the moral hysteriaabout crime. It not only provides a rational kernel for alarm,but its genesis lies at the same source;and the mass media serve and exaggeratesuch public fears. (Lea and Young 1993:49, 263) This leavesthe statusof moral panic slightlyambiguous.The line between 'fear'and 'hysteria','alarm'and 'panic',is a fine one: if it is rationalto be alarmedabout crime,it mayalso, perhaps,be rationalto panic. One of the most telling objections to Policing the Crzsiswas that it treated the moral panic as an irrationalor disproportionate response to a situation,without providingany 'criteriaof proportionality' to distinguishit from a rational response (Waddington1986). The realistcriminologists solve this problem ratherneatlyby eliminatingthe need for any such distinction. In shiftingthe focus of attentionawayfrom the utterancesof politicians, journalists and other professionalsto the attitudes and opinions of the general public, the 'grassroots' model marksa significantdeparturefrom previoustheories of moral panic. However,it can also be seen as continuing and developingsome of the themes of Cohen's originaldefinition. Its proponents have tended, like Cohen, to treat moral panic as a cultural phenomenon. StuartA. Scheingold,in ThePoliticsof Law and Order(1984), arguesthat moralpanics about street crime are rooted in a 'mythof crime and punishment'that has little to do with the actualincidence of crimebut is sustainedby the pervasive'culturalpresence' of violence in contemporaryAmericansociety.In a discussionof the moralpanic in Swedencaused by a proposal to provide clean syringesto intravenousdrug users,Arthur Gould suggests that an analysisof 'political,ideological and institutional factors'is incomplete without reference to the 'widersocial structureand culture' and, in particular,the sense that Swedish national identity was under threat. Unlike Cohen, Scheingold and Gould treat moral panics as the productof a diffusesense of crisis,not obviouslyin the interestsof any particulargroup. As with Cohen, however,there is a timelessnessabout their view of moral panic: they emphasizethe culturalfactorswhich make it inevitablethat similarmoralpanicswill occur againin the future,regardless of social or politicaltrends.Scheingoldsuggeststhat there are 'cultural constants'in Americansocietywhich favourthe development of punitive policies on law and order (Scheingold 1984, Gould 1994). A tentativegenealogy of moral panic, then, would depict Cohen's original theoryas the parentof twoother, mutually opposingtheories.One (the 'elite-engineered') theory accepts Cohen's suggestion that moral panics serve the interestsof particulargroups,but rejectsthe idea that they have deep-seated cultural causes; the other (the 'grassroots'theory) accepts Cohen'sculturalinterpretation of moralpanicsbut rejectsor severelyqualifies the interest-groupexplanation.The work of David Underdown,discussed brieflyabove,illustratesthe developmentof the 'grassroots' theory particularly clearly. In locaiing the moral panic at the level of 'cultural

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conflict'and identifyingmoralentrepreneurs who promoteit, Underdown resemblesCohen;yet he arguesthat there waswidespreadpopularparticipation in the moralpanic, and considershimself to be assertingthe autonomy of popular culture, as opposed to historians who 'say that ... everythingof importancein seventeenth-century Englandhappened "from the top down",with the common people alwaysobedientlyfollowing the lead of theirbetters'(Underdown1992:x) . Likeother 'grassroots' theorists - DavidHerman,for example, deploring the 'sneering,cynicaltone' used by the left to denigrate'realculturalanxieties'(New Statesman, 13 May1994) - he defineshis own positionin oppositionto the 'elite-engineered' theory.
'MORAL PANIC' IN THEMEDIA, 198y1995

The evolvinguse of 'moralpanic' in the media parallelsits use in academic discourse,though with a markedtime-lag.Folk DevilsandMoral Panicscame out in 1972and wasreprintedin 1980;by 1984,referencesto 'moralpanic' were startingto appearregularly in the broadsheetnewspapers. Policing the Crzsis came out in 1978and wasoften reprintedthereafter; its effect on the media's use of 'moralpanic' is not evident before 1988. Lea and Young's What Is ToBeDoneAbout Lawand Order? appearedin 1984, and Waddington's article'Muggingas a MoralPanic'in 1988;witha few exceptions, journalistsdid not followup their critiqueof the 'elite-engineered' theoryuntil 1993.It may,seemingly,take up to ten yearsfor new developmentsin sociology and criminologyto filter through to the media. There are, of course, exceptions to this chronology.One of the earliest newspaper articlesto use the term, on 18June 1985,provedto be remarkablyprescientin anticipatingthingsto come. Moralpanic, DigbyAnderson explained to the readers of TheTimes, was '1960s sociologese to refer to publicconcernssociologistswouldpreferto brushunder the carpet'.There was'no social scientificevidence of a moral panic' aboutAIDS,but in the lightof attemptsto 'relativize moral standards'and 'extend the incidence of homosexualpractice',perhapsthere ought to be: Should not those within Judaism, the Christianchurches, Islam and among half-churchedbut traditionally inclined parents, and the many homosexualswho do not approveof homosexualproselytization, startto be concerned?In short,whatwe need is a little more moral panic. Having begun by dismissingthe idea of moral panic, Andersonended up byendorsing it. Over the next ten years, the use of 'moral panic' in the national presswould follow the same trajectory. In the courseof the 1980sthe termwasappliedto a widevariety of issues, includingAIDS, child abuse, crowd violence at football matches, drug addiction, juvenile crime and surrogatemothers. Moralpanic was attriS utedeither to the media alone ('a Fleet Streetmoralpanic') or to a mood ofpublic concern created by the media ('The public's moral panic is

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accompanied by a good deal of misinformation').The term was almost alwaysused pejoratively.'Moralfervour often breeds and benefits from moralpanic', declaredone writerin the Guardian on 12July1985. 'In conditions of such alarm,informed and sustaineddebate seems to go by the board.' Mostof the referencesto 'moralpanic' in the mid-1980soccurred in the Guardian or in left-wingweekliessuch as the NewStatesman and New Society, but by the end of the decade the term had made its wayinto other broadsheetnewspapers and wasbeginning to be treatedas a commonplace. At first, quotationsfrom academicswere used to establishthe credentials of an unfamiliarterm: "'Whatwe are witnessingis a moral panic," says MichaelFreeman,Professorof EnglishLawat University College,London' (Guardian 15January1985). Withina few years,journalistsfelt sufficiently familiar withthe termto refercasually to 'the inevitablemediamoralpanic' (Independent 6 October 1988) or 'the media-saturated space marked"moral panic"' ( TheTimes 22 February1992). The interpretationof moral panic underlyingmost of these newspaper articles is neatly summed up in an extract from the Daily Telegraph (20 March1991): Dr Thompson does not deny the existence of occult crime . . . 'I'm not sayingthat this sort of abusecould neverhappen,' he says.'Butso far this bears all the signs of a classicmoral panic - a scare promoted by a particulargroup to achieve a particular end.' The influence of the 'interest-group' theorycan also be detected in articles whichsuggest,by meansof historicalparallels,thatmoralpanicsare eternal or cyclicalin nature. A Guardian article on 30 May 1985 recounted 'the extraordinarystory of a fourteenth century "moral panic" that swept Europe'at the time of the BlackDeath, and an articleby RoyPorter,published in NewSociety in December 1986, drewsimilarparallelsbetween the present-daymoral panic about AIDS and the panic about cholera in the nineteenth century,or plague in the sixteenth century,noting that scapegoats (Cohen's 'folk devils')were found for each epidemic.Viewingmoral panics in historicalperspective,there was a tendency to attributethem to culturalratherthan socialor economic causes.A book reviewin the Sunday Times in June 1992 declared that 'as the last years of centuries seem historicallyprone to moral panics,it should not surpriseus that the Aids epidemic has, with wearisomepredictability,been interpreted as an act of God'.Moralpanic, agreed TheTix?zesin a leadingarticle(24 February 1993), was a pervasiveelement in 'contemporaryWestern culture' and a 'predictablefixture in fin de siecle life'. Bythe late 1980s,however,other theoriesof moralpanic had entered the media. The termwasincreasingly felt to belong to left-wingpolemic rather than detached historicalanalysis,and there was consequentlya reluctance to use it uncritically.Interestingly,this originatedin the left-wingmedia. The Guardian commented on 17 June 1988 that recent cases of football hooliganism had provoked 'predictable responses. On the demagogic

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right, there are callsfor such louts to be locked up for a long time . . . On the jargon-ladenleft it's all being blamed on moral panic, MrsThatcher and socialdeprivation'. On 28 August1989the Guardianattackedthe 'conventionalwisdom', 'widelyaccepted in Home Office and policing circles', 'that risk of crime is much lower than the public suspect . . . and that the mass media have contributed to irrational fears, particularlyamongst women and the elderly'.Again, this waspresentedas politicallybipartisan: 'whilstthe Right talksof "irrational fear",much of the Left talksof "moral panic".All of this is palpablyuntrue for inner city areasand for the more vulnerablemembersof our society'.These two articlesare exceptional in being up to date with the work of realistcriminologists; other newspaper articlesof about the same date are awareof the 'elite-engineered'theory but acceptit uncritically. An articlein the Sunday Timesattacked'thosewho wishto whip up "moral panics"and cut backon socialspending' (3 December 1989) and an articlein the Independent reporteda claimthat 'the police and local authorities'had 'whippedup hysteriain relation to acid house and are using their powersaccordingly. . . It's moral panic. They see it as somethingwickedand they want to stop it' (24July 1990). The suddenpopularity of 'moralpanic'in 1993waslargelydue to a single news story:the killing of the toddlerJamesBulger in February1993, and the arrestof twoother boyswho weresubsequently convictedof his murder. As The Timessummedit up eight months later: When a toddler was abductedand murderedearlier this year,with suspicion fallingon two other boys,the killinginspireda moralpanic across Britain.John Major announced a 'crusade against crime', and the numberswho told MORItheywereworriedaboutlawand orderdoubled within a month.
As a result of the Bulger murder, the Home Secretary,Kenneth Clarke,

announced plans for more custodial sentences for young offenders. A statement by a group of charities, published in The Times and widely reported in other newspapers,warned that 'in the atmosphereof "moral panic",there is a danger that all the lessons learned in recent yearsabout the clear link betweenjuvenile custodyand high re-offendingrateswill be lost' (The Times3 March 1995). The Timesitself commented in a leading article on the same day that 'Britainis in the grip of one of those moral panicsthat afflictseverynation periodically, usuallyduringrecessions'and thatyoung people were being castas scapegoats.This use of 'moralpanic', based on Folk Devils and Moral Panics, was not at all unusual. Simultaneously,however,the popularityof the termwasleading some writersto examine it more critically. On the weekend afterJamesBulger'smurder, the Sunday Timestook a conventionally pejorative viewof moralpanic ('Weare in the midstof what sociologistscall a "moral panic",a contagiousburstof popularoutragethat riskslosing sight of reality'),while a leading articlein the relatively liberal Independent on Sundaymounted a sustainedcritiqueof the term:

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Moralpanic is one of those deflating phrasesused by sociologistsand other allegedlyimpartialstudentsof human behaviourto condescend to excitements among the general populace. The phrase usually comes whichdemonstratethatalcohol consumptionwas equippedwithstatistics in fact much larger in the 1840s, or that football hooliganism actually we have began in 1898. . . The doctoralmessageis calming:do not worry, been here before, your concernsare an ersatzcompound manufactured by the media, a few odd bishops, stridentvoices from the left and the right, moralistsand nostalgistsof all kinds. (21 February1993) presshad occasionally Before the Bulgercase,journalistsin the right-wing experimentedwith differenttheoriesof moralpanic.An articlein the Daily on 3July 1987 had attempteda reworkingof the 'interest-group' Telegraph theory,arguingthat the moral panic about child abusewas caused 'not by the popularpress'but by professionalsocialworkersand their politicalsut porters,'people like the LabourMP,MissClareShort'.On 18 October1992 had made an ingeniousattemptto commandeerthe 'eliteTimes the Sunday populism,with the suggestion engineered' theoryin the causeof right-wing that movement . . . is only the latest in a long line of coerthe anti-smoking cive crusadesand moral panics, by means of which upper and middle class elites seek to impose their lifestyles and preferences upon the workingclasses. These are plausiblearguments,playingon fearsof left-wingor middle-class elitism and skilfully drawing on the pejorative connotations of 'moral panic', but as interpretationsof moral panic, they did not catch on. The helped to popularizea new theory of moral panic, on Sunday Independent but now seeking to endorse moralpanic,justifyingit as anti-elitist, similarly rationaland repudiatingthe pejorativeuse of the term. This version of the 'grassroots'theory rapidly gained ground in the broadsheetpapers.On 28 February1993, only a week afterthe Independent followed suit rexamination of moral panic, the SundayTimes on Sunday's with an articleby GregHadfieldwhich placed StuartHall in a sinisterpanacademicsand clerics'whom 'critics theon of 'sociologists,criminologists, he argued that theCrisis, blame for the nation'swoes': 'In 1978, in Policing concern about mugging was a "moralpanic",based on exaggeratedevidence.' 'Bringbackthe voice of authority',pleaded MelaniePhillipsin the on 5 March1993: Guardian middle classeswith a bad dose of Utopian myopia Only the ivory-tower could delude themselvesthatjuvenile crime isn't an immenselyserious problem . . . Realitysuggests that juvenile offending is up, not down. Communityanxiety is understandable.The term 'moral panic' is misplaced. A succession of similararticlesappeared in both left-wingand right-wing papers throughout 1993, attacking 'progressive criminologists' for

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'dismissing the crime epidemic and crisis in values as "moral panic"' (Obsgrver 19 September 1993) or complaining that alarm about singleparent families 'has been labelled in progressivecircles as mere "moral panic"' (DailyTelegraph 5 November1993). Some attempts were made to recapture the term, often by readers responding,throughthe letterspages, to applicationsof 'moral panic' that theydisagreedwith.Thus the Independent onSunday's editorialwasfollowed, a week later, by a reader'sletter castigatingit for 'a misunderstanding of the valuableconcept of "moralpanic"' and reiterating Cohen's theory of folk devils:'popularconcerns' (in this case, 'widespread concern about the state of Britishsocietyarisingfrom the Bulgercase') was takenup by 'politicians and the media', turned into a moral panic and directed against 'scapegoats'. Forcedonto the defensive,the writerwaspreparedto concede thatmoralpanicswere an exaggeratedversionof 'popular concerns'about realsocial problems.ProfessorJock Youngput forwarda similarargument in a letter to the Guardian on 8 June 1994, in which he attempted, not altogethersuccessfully, to gloss over the ambiguitiesof 'moralpanic'. 'Sociologistsin Britaincoined the term', he suggested,to refer to cases where public reaction was completely disproporiionateto the actual problemfaced . . . At no pointwasit suggestedthatsuch a term shouldbe used to blankout and denigrategenuine fearsand concerns aboutcrime. These attemptsto contest and to regulate the definition of moral panic failed to dispel the ambiguity of the term. It was an ambiguity which could sometimes come in useful. It enabled the film censorJamesFerman, interviewed in the Independent (13 August 1993), to offer a sop to both liberal and conservative readers:'We seem to go through a waveof moral panics inBritain,but there's alwayssomething at the heart of it.' It helped The Times (leading article, 23 May 1994) to sell the idea of a 'new politics of social responsibility' to readerswho might be suspiciousof moralcoercion: 'Though it is easy for a nation to slip into moral panic unnecessarily, the concern which is felt by ordinarypeople about such issues can no longer be ignored by those who representthem'. This ambivalence about 'moral panic' illustratesthe writer'sdoubtsabout the popularcredibility of moral language - a problem neatlyencapsulatedin WilliamOddie's description of the 'backto basics'campaignas 'a kind of controlled moralpanic' ( The Times 20 March 1994). At other times, of course, the ambiguitywas accidental and simplyled to confusion,as differentmeaningsof 'moralpanic' came into collision. Writingin the London Review of Books in 1993, Marina Warner referredto incest as 'one of the dominantfocuses of moral she evidentlyintended to use the term in a neutral,descriptive panic'; sense, but one reader interpreted it differently,assuming that 'moral panic' was a pejorative term,and accusingWarnerof condoning incest (LRB7 October and 4 November1993). In examining the recent and current use of the term, several stand out. The first is the assumption that moral panic is a features cultural

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phenomenon. As The Timesput it, in a leading article on 8 August 1994: Few now feel comfortablewith the notion of a zeitgeist or spirit of the age. Common sense dictates, however, that moments in history are defined in part by moods, attitudesand propensitiesfor action. Future historiansof Britainwilllook backon the twoyearsafterthe 1992general election as a period of moralpanic, culturaluncertainty and politicaldisorientation.Theymayalso recordthata subtleshiftin the nationalmood took place during 1994. Even those who used the term pejoratively tended to accept the idea of a 'national mood', and to use phrases like 'moral panic grips the nation' (Guardian3 June 1994) or 'the latest moral panic to sweep Britain' ( Guardian 13June 1994). EvenLivingMarxism conceded in November1994 that moral panic affected 'not only the media and a small circle of reactionaries', and 'not only those in authority',but 'society as a whole'. A second, and related,aspectof the term'srecent use is the increasingprevalence of the 'grassroots' theory. The American conservative Charles Murray, writingin the SundayTimes on 22 May1994 in the firstof a muchpublicizedseries of articleson the 'Britishunderclass',argued that Britain needed to return to the traditionalvaluesof marriageand the two-parent familyin order to ensure social stability, and claimed to detect a 'changed public mood' on the current social crisis. The academic associationsof 'moralpanic' were now used to discreditratherthan to supportthe term. 'Mostintellectualsare still holding out: all but a handful of the academics I met continued to dismissproblemsof risingcrime and single parenthood as a "moralpanic".But concern was evident everywhere else'. Murraywas correct to suggest that 'moral panic' was on the retreat. Writers who used the term in a mannerconsistentwith the 'interest-group' or 'elitesngineered' theories did so more cautiously,even apologetically. 'Though the concept of the moralpanic has been somewhatdiscreditedof late (or at least found wanting), it still has its uses', ventureda reviewerin the Guardian on 28 January1995. The growingrecognition of the 'grassroots' theoryled to its appearancein the DailyMailon 11 March1995,one of the first occasions on which the term 'moral panic' had appearedin a tabloid newspaper.Following Murray,the subject under discussionwas, once again, the threatto the two-parent family. Perhapsthe time has come when we should not be ashamedof standing up for old-fashionedvalues, merely because of taunts that we are succumbingto a 'moralpanic'.We need, for the sake of all our children,to foster a sense of communitywhich depends on these traditionalvalues. The term 'moral panic' is rejected; but the phenomenon, redefined as 'standingup for old-fashionedvalues', is presented more positivelythan ever before. Several journalistshad alreadystartedto use 'moralpanic' as a term of approval:Suzanne Moore wrote that the problem of feckless

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fathers, not single mothers, was 'whatwe should have our moral panics about' ( Guardian 27 May1994);NickHornbywrotethaton seeing a controversialworkof art inspiredby the Bulgermurder'I found that I could participate much more directlyin the moral panic' (Indtpendent on Sunday 5 June 1994).
CONCLUSION: THEMEDIA ANDMORAL LANGUAGE

Supportersof 'moralpanic' have argued that the term is everybit as relevant to the media in the l990s as it was to the relativelyunsophisticated reporting of the Mods and Rockersin 1964 and 1965. Moralpanics have evolvedand developed,admittedly, but the speciesis in no dangerof dying out. Now that the termhas establisheditself in the media,professionaltheoristsof moralpanic no longer havesole controlover the wayit is used;but its popularity acrossthe politicalspectrumand amongjournalists as well as academicsonly goes to show, as Goode and Ben-Yehuda remark,that the concept is generallyagreed to be valid.The media has become more selfconsciousabout participating in moralpanics,and it could be argued that recent moralpanicshavebeen more self-referential, even theatrical in character, as well as being more open to criticismfrom within the media;but the result,in the wordsof AngelaMcRobbie, is that 'the model of the moral panic is urgentlyin need of updatingand revisingpreciselybecause of its success'.McRobbie's examinationof moralpanic is a good example of the 'evolution,not extinction' school of thought. She suggeststhat we live in an era of postmodernmoral panics,when the moral panic can no longer proceed unchallenged and cannot, therefore, be used to justify new measuresof social control.But she seesJamesBulger'smurderas the catalystfor a moral panic of a thoroughlyold-fashionedkind, 'wherea horrific event givesrise to a spiralof anxietiesand leads to punitivemeasuresbeing taken'.Forall its sophistication, postmodern journalismtakesus full circle, back to a theory of moral panics and folk devils hardly changed from Cohen's originalmodel (McRobbie1994:198-219). But there is a need for a much more searchingcritiqueof the concept. Recent writing on moral panic incorporatesseveral highly questionable assumptions: first,that moralpanicsare timeless,common to 'all societies' (Goode and Ben-Yehuda1994: x) and 'subject to eternal recurrence' (Downesand Rock 1988:96); secondly,that they are embeddedin the 'collectiveconscience' (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994:202) as partof the 'landscape of the public imagination' (McRobbie1994:203). The presence of these assumptionsis not particularly surprising,as recent historiesof the sociology of deviance have shown that the theory of moral panic has descended from functionalismand ultimatelyfrom Durkheim (Downes and Rock 1988:96; Summer 1994: 263). But while they can be found in Cohen's original model of moral panic, it is in the 'grassroots' theory of moral panic developed by the realistcriminologists, and even more in the

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simplified version of that theory that took root in the media, that they become most prominent and most damaging. Colin Sumner describes Cohen's model as a blend of Marxand Durkheim, suggesting that we could rely on Durkheim for insights into general societal changes/evolution and on Marx for the internal, detailed, dynamicsof that change;an approachthatwasnot uncommon in British sociologyin the 1960s. (Sumner 1994:263) In the 'grassroots'theory, Marx drops out of the picture, and one is left with a theory of moralpanic that is disengagedfrom the immediatepolitical circumstances in which a panic occurs.There is a worryinglack of historical specificity (as in Goode and Ben-Yehuda's'eclectic approach' applied to phenomena as diverseas the Renaissancewitch-craze and the American drug-panicof the 1980s) and a facile optimism (compare, for example, McRobbie's sympathetic depiction of pressure groups with Cohen's much harsher treatment of moral entrepreneursand Jenkins's highly criticalaccount of the role of the NSPCCand other 'claims-makers' in the panic over child abuse). A further problem is that no theory of moral panic has yet provideda satisfactory explanationof the relationshipbetween the media and public opinion. McRobbiecriticizesexisting theories for assuming 'a clear distinctionbetween the worldof the media and the worldof social reality',in other words,betweenwhat 'really'happens and what the paperssay.It is a valid criticism,as we shall see in a moment; but one could arguejust the reverse:that the problem with 'moral panic' is that it fails to distinguish betweenthe mediaand socialreality,betweenwhatthe paperssayand what the public thinks. Keith Tester has criticizedthe assumptionthat 'simply because there wasa moralpanic in the media there must also have been a moral panic among the viewers and readers' (Tester 1994: 85). Colin Sumner puts it more bluntly: 'Was there actually a moral panic about mugging?'Presscuttings,as he points out, are an unreliableguide to public opinion, and 'it is quite conceivablethat the public statementsmade by journalists,policemen, and politiciansdid not have much impact on the publicat large'. (Sumner1981:282-3) The seeds of thisproblemweresown in Folk DevilsandMoral Panics, where there is said to be 'littledoubt that the mainstreamof reaction expressedin the mass media - putativedeviance, punitiveness,the creation of new folk devils - entered into the public imagery', despite Cohen's finding that some sections of the public perceived the media as having over-reacted(Cohen 1980: 70). Once again, however, the problem is most acute in the 'grassroots'theory of moral panic, with its assumptionthat the media reflects, though in a distorting mirror, 'real' public fears about crime, and in the thoroughlyself-serving versionsof this theory that have appearedin the media itself. Testerdoubtsthe socialrealityof moralpanicbecausehe doubtswhether the media is capableof communicating issuesof moralsignificance.'Media significancemeans moral insignificance.'In other words,the media is less

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likelyto createmoralpanicsthan 'moralboredomand dullness'.This is an extreme statement of the increasinglycommon view that we are experiencing a moralcrisiswhichis, in essence, a crisisof morallanguage.Among moralphilosophers, Alasdair MacIntyre hasarguedthatmorallanguagehas become devaluedor dislocated,and MaryMaxwellhas identified a 'moral inertia' resulting, in part, from 'the unavailability of words needed to express certain concepts . . . [or] to portraythe relationshipof responsibilityand blame in particularsituations'.(MacIntyre 1981, Maxwell1991) This sense of moral crisishelps to explain the sudden popularity of 'moral panic' in the media. 'Moralpanic' was not only a way of diagnosing the crisis; it also appearedto providea moralvocabulary to meet it. Interviewed in the Guardian on 22 February1995, the right-wing journalist Matthew D'Anconaexplained that Britainhad experienceda sort of moralpanic between the case ofJamie Bulgerand the death ofJohn Smith,whichwasseeminglyalleviatedby the arrival of Tony Blair.You see, Blairhas a linguisticprojectwhich is to constructa languagethat his partycan win with . . . by appropriating some thinking from conservative and liberaltraditions. The remedyfor moralpanic, accordingto this argument,wasthe language of citizenship, community and 'civic responsibility',of a 'moral order' stressingduties rather than rights, 'a coherent vocabulary',as TheTimes leader-writer called it on 23 May1994, 'withwhich to develop these emerging ideas' of moral renewal.As part of this 'linguisticproject', the term 'moralpanic' itself had to be redefined as a form of civicconsciousness,an expressionof public anxietyratherthan a conspiracyof elites or interestgroups. Cohen's original set of synonyms- 'moralpanic . . . moral crusadesor moralindignation. . . moral campaigns'- made it clearthat a moralpanic wasa temporary burstof moral excitement,a diversionfrom seriousmoral discussion.Poticing the Crzsis similarlycontrastedmoral panic with 'sober, realisticappraisal';and journalistsin this tradition have done the same, stressingthe need to 'separatethe wheat of real moral concern from the chaff of moral panic' (Michael Ignatieff in the Guardian, 12 May 1981). McRobbie's criticismof the distinctionbetweenmoralpanic and the 'real' world is extremelytelling here, and in this respect the 'grassroots' theory does mark a significantadvanceon its predecessors,in its integrationof moral panicswith the continuousprocessof moraldiscourseand practice. Whatwe are dealingwith, as SimonWatneyobserves,is not a stringof 'discontinuous and discrete "moralpanics",but rather the mobilityof idew logical confrontation across the entire field of public representation' (Watney1987:42). But there are obviousdifficultiesin transplanting the language of 'moral panic' into this radicallydifferent context, as, for example,when the Archbishopof Canterbury, in his sermon on EasterDay 1993, equates moral panic with the instinctivehuman response to evil. Morality, it seems, naturally takesthe form of panic:

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There is a battle in the world,and we all knowit, betweengood and evil. It is within each one of us and it is in each society . . . Evil:it fills us with horrorand a kind of moralpanic. It is hardto see how this form of morallanguagecould incorporatenotions It makes moralityappear dangerof moral reasoningor decision-making. ouslyvolatile,as in PaulJohnson'spredictionthatpopulardiscontentwould 2 'reach a critical mass and detonate a moral explosion' (SundayTimes January1994), and the resultis an attitudeof moral helplessness. Manyof the metaphorsused to describemoral behaviourreflect a preoccupationwith moral aggression,as if to echo Goode and Ben-Yehuda's observation that the concepts of moral panic and moral crusade have tended to overlap (1994: 19). Susie Orbach's 'new moral consensus' 15 April requires nothing less than 'a secular moral crusade' (Gqbardian 1995);WillHutton's 'moraleconomy' involves'a call to arsnsin a worldin which time is running short' (Hutton 1996:26). The concern with shared withpanic, these writers moralvaluesis laudable,but by conflatingmorality (both, ironically,on the politicalleft) have committedthemselvesto reproIf, in Cohen'swords,'more moralpanics ducing moralpanicsuncritically. will be generated', it will be because of a moral language that admits no other possibility. (Date accepted:June1996)
ArnoldHunt Trinilt College CamEdge

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