CLASS FOUR: MORAL PANIC & MEDIA PANIC

Stanley Cohen - folks devils and moral panics

Examined how media shape social problems.

• Mass media = main source to learn about deviance

• Mass media create folk devils and moral panics

• Folk devil: “visible reminders of what we should not be”

  • e.g., terrorists, “red scare” (communists), Jews during WWII

How?

(1) Exaggeration and distortion

(2) Prediction → predicting it’s going to happen again

(3) Symbolisation → using the same picture over and over again to associate the danger to the symbol.

• Media imagery and discourses become part of public debate, which also involves other figures of power & authority (politicians), who take over the terms used in mass media.

• Used to restore a social equilibrium – groups that are targeted are usually challenges to the way society is organized.

Chas Critcher

Reworked Cohen’s theory into a processual model (not linear!)

Stage 1: Emergence

Something emerges that is considered a danger to the moral or social order (first incident, as the example of the fights in coastal towns…)

 Stage 2: Media inventory

• Mass media try to understand the ‘problem’

• Create a forum for people who ‘detected’ the problem

• Exaggeration/distortion, prediction, and symbolization

• Resulting in a media inventory on the problem  

Stage 3: Moral entrepreneurs

Powerful people (symbolic capital, institutional power) “take it upon themselves to pronounce upon the nature of the problem and its best remedies”.

• Emergence of a public debate beyond media (e.g., Parliament)

• Using intellectual and emotional responses to understand deviance and deviants.

• Public debate leaves mass media

Stage 4: Experts

• Experts weigh in, carry some more credibility to understanding the problem, offering counterarguments or support to the moral entrepreneurs….

• But also, people who ‘claim’ to be an expert and rather fuel the moral panic

 Stage 5: Coping and resolution

• Former stages: suggesting ‘required measures’

• Stage 5: culture of control and containment

• Developing coping strategies

  • E.g., demanding legal reform

• Institutions with power offer resolutions as experts revisit certain measures and asses which ones are adequate.

 Stage 6: Moral panic fades away

• No more concerns…

• Condition may have disappeared, naturalized, no longer understood as a ‘problem’…

• …or something ‘new’ came along:
  E.g., skinheads and hippies

• Leaves a trace: mere footnote to changes in social policy,
  country’s laws or sociocultural discourses.

• One moral panic can dissappear due to the emergence of a new one.

  • e.g.,  moral panic about the internet fades away due to moral panic about AI.

Kirsten Drotner - historical observations

Emergence of new media is accompanied by discourses of optimism (often linked to rational arguments) and pessimism (often linked to emotion). Not all ‘new’ media lead to debates (everywhere)

• E.g., film caused more distress in US than in Europe.

When a debate about media consists of heated and emotional responses, we may speak of a media panic.

• Heated emotional responses and polarized discussions are indicators for a media panic.

example

Optimism → advantages of having a smartphone, …

Pessimism → child will not be able to leave the TV – no emotional development, …

Kirsten Drotner - media panics & industrialisation

(1)  Media panics are not simple side effects of mass production and industrialization.

• Media panics in rural areas in Germany and Denmark (not industrialized)

• Popular print and fiction = a danger for the mental nourishment of youth

(2)  Panics are deeply implicated in issues beyond immediate causes

• Focused on (spreading of) popular fiction and songs…

• …but concerned with an increased societal literacy.

• Increased literacy: economic asset, social modernisation but also enabling the population to read diverse texts.

• Panics reveal contradictory ideas about democratization

MPPDA

Motion picture producers and distributors of America - a trade organisation headed by Will H. Hays. People from the industry came together to discuss how to organize film production.

• Opposes censorship, proposes self-regulation.

• Launched ‘The Formula’ (1924): rules designed to prevent objectionable plays and novels from being produced as films.

• Did not prevent production of modern film.

Motion Picture Production Code

Directors/producers asked to submit the film’s script to SRC, but why did the industry cave?

• Best way to avoid government interference.

• Allow a steady cash flow from Catholic audiences and financers.

• Many producers agreed that films featured too much sex and violence.

• Believed the Code could be interpreted creatively.

• An independent jury of producers could overturn/repeal SRC’s decisions.

PCA

Production Code Administration - headed by Joseph Breen and aimed at a more struct enforcement of the code. All films had to:

• …obtain certificate of approval before release

• …feature a strong voice of morality

• …feature enough ‘goodness’ and a ‘good’ character

• Removal of jury of producers who had power to overrule requested cuts

• Some films nonetheless kept provoking Catholic audiences

Joseph Breen

head of the production code administration (PCA)

Will Hays

Head of the picture producers and distributors of America (MPPDA)

Historical development of Hollywood censorship

1910s: emergence of censorship boards

• emergence of local and state boards of censorship

• freedom of speech provisions did not protect film

• no consistency between states, but all had same goals

1920s: sensational scandals of private lives of film stars

• Industry pressured to censor due to movie star scandals

• creation of the motion picture procures and distributors of America (MPPDA) - headed by Will H. Hays

• Hays proposed self-regulation

SRC & catholic backlash

• Studio relations committee (SRC) - released a document based on common objections of the censorship boards, establishing don’ts and be careful’s

• studios could interpret the list the way they liked it.

• Late 20s → introduction of sound - increased anger due to new ways of infusing “bad” behaviour in film

• small group of catholics began condemning moral quality of film and started developing a new code of behaviour. It did not like government censorship and approached it from the level of production

  • lord’s code

  • accepted by Hays, but opposed by the studios as it was utopian and simplistic.

1930 - 34: Motion picture production code

• The industry did cave in 1930 - as it formally adopted the code

• why?

  • avoid government interference

  • steady cashflow from catholic audiences & financers

  • producers agreed films were too erotic and violent anyway

  • believed the code could be interpreted creatively

  • independent jury could overturn SRC decisions

• implementation did not go that well: sexuality and violence were still possible, and the censors weren’t that strict.

• Catholic backlash increased → studies about the effects of film on children and adolescents in the late 20s / 30s

  • creation of a media panic - boycott of problematic films and demanding a stricter enforcement of the code.

1934 - 1968: Production code administration (PCA)

• Hays appoints Joseph Breen as director of the PCA

• more struct enforcement of the code

• all films had to…

  • obtain a certificate of approval before release

  • feature a strong voice of morality

  • feature enough goodness and good characters

• removal of jury of producers

• until 54, the industry followed the roles rigidly (20.000 films made under the code) - lacked artistic quality

• after a while, industries did not want to risk losing (inter)national markets

• media panics decreased and PCA authority did too

  • rise of TV

  • box office collapse

  • Supreme Court protecting film

  • independent film makers

  • impact of foreign films (not made under PCA)

  • non-approved mainstream films became box office hits