Dissertations / Theses: 'Moral-panic'

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McCready, Marshall. "Putting the Panic Back in Moral Panic Theory: A Case for Disproportionality." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2020. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1752379/.

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The appeal of moral panic studies, a once very popular sociological subfield, dropped precipitously around the turn of the century due in large part to debates about disproportionality, the notion a panicked group's concern about a perceived threat exceeds that warranted by its objective harmfulness. Classic theorists claim disproportionality is a panic's essential criterion and that it can be demonstrated by comparing a group's concerned reaction to the available facts. Critics argue it is a value-laden, ideologically tainted construct and often claim it cannot be demonstrated because there are no authoritative facts. These debates were and still are fraught with confusion. Perplexingly, both sides assume a shared definition despite clearly assessing the proportionality of different aspects of the relevant reaction. A typology differentiating the potential types of disproportionality either does not exist in the moral panic literature or remains shrouded in obscurity. In this paper, I review the classic theories, their critiques, and a new postmodern moral panic theory. By juxtaposing the different foci of the orthodox and contemporary theories, I derive a much-needed disproportionality typology. I also develop a new framework through which to assess moral panics predicated on this typology. My hope is these developments will stimulate a more sophisticated debate about disproportionality and encourage theorists to refine rather than simply reject classic approaches to the disproportionality problem.

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Keith, Julie Ann. "School violence, the anatomy of a moral panic." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0008/MQ32364.pdf.

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Cavanagh, Allison. "Journalist's Representations of the Internet: Moral Panic Theories." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.491055.

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This thesis is an attempt to reconsider and clarify some of the issues the application of the term 'moral panic' to popular and media concerns. In particular the work raises grave doubts about the ways in which this term has been used by academics and the structure of assumptions around the relationship between the press, moral panics, and the public that traditional models assume. The work is also an empirical study of the forms of representation assumed in the presentation of the internet as a new technology by journalists over the period 1995-2000 and hence reflects upon the media as both subject and object of enquiry. The investigation covers a broad range of data collected from British broadsheet newspapers over the period under scrutiny and uses a qualitative approach to analysing the themes which emerged from these discussions, and the institutional situations against the background of which these types of discourse can be situated. The work takes a critical approach to the idea that such concerns can be adequately explained by models of moral panic popularised by theorists working within mainstream cultural studies models, arguing instead that moral panics must be disinterred from these discourses and reconsidered in light evidence concerning the functions and activities of modem media.

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Richardson, Kristin Lynn. "School Shootings and Mental Illness: A Moral Panic." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/73668.

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This research uses moral panic theory to investigate the ways in which print media coverage influences the association of mental illness with acts of mass violence in schools. I explore the relationship between the rhetoric of moral entrepreneurs (such as victims' friends and family members, law enforcement agencies, criminal justice and mental health professionals, gun rights activists, mayors, members of Congress, and presidents), the construction of a moral panic, and the identification of a folk devil (a person or population deemed responsible for the evils of a society; to be feared and controlled in order to minimize threat). Perpetrators of school shootings are often discussed in terms of their consumption of violent media (such as movies, music, and video games), their access to firearms, their social standing among their peers (socially isolated, ostracized, or bullied at school), and their mental health status. I hypothesize that mental illness has become a common frame in which school shooters are discussed by the media, despite the fact that mentally ill persons are less likely than non-disordered individuals to commit acts of violence. Therefore, this characterization of the mentally ill as violent and dangerous is disproportionate to the actual level of threat. I conduct a quantitative frame analysis of print newspaper articles published in the New York Times and one local newspaper during the month following each mass school shooting between 1991 and 2015, coding for the type of moral entrepreneur (grassroots, interest-group, or elite), the folk devil identified (violent media, firearms, social alienation, and/or mental illness), and whether the folk devil was being affirmed or denied. Results reveal that guns are affirmed as the folk devil more often than mental illness, but are also denied most often; whereas mental illness is affirmed nearly as often as guns, and is less frequently denied as the folk devil — leading to the conclusion that mental illness is the most frequently accepted folk devil associated with school shootings. This serves as a cautionary warning against the conflation of mental illness with mass shootings, because it intensifies the stigma attached to mental illness — a known deterrent to seeking treatment.
Ph. D.

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Williams, Matthew G. (Matthew Graham) Carleton University Dissertation Law. "Canadian youth justice: moral panic or respectable fears?" Ottawa, 1994.

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Holland, V. B. "'Hard cases make bad laws' : reactive legislation and the UK Parliament." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390873.

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Choi, Sin-yi, Pui-lam Chu, Tsz-yeung Fong, Shuk-yi Maggy Lee, Choi-fung Wu, Po-yi Wu, 方子洋, 朱霈霖, 胡寶儀, and 胡彩豐. "Moral panic and the post 80s generation in Hong Kong." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/205831.

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This research seeks to examine the definition and the phenomenon of the “post 80s generation” in Hong Kong and the extent to which the post 80s generation constituted a moral panic. It also seeks to explore the role of media in the construction of the same moral panic. Cohen (1972) developed the concept of moral panic in order to examine some social phenomena, which created a threat to society. Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) identified five elements to examine moral panic including (1) concern, (2) hostility, (3) consensus, (4) disproportionality and (5) volatility. Based on the textual analysis on 3,854 news reports on two local newspapers within the period 2009--2012 as well as 12 in-depth interviews with the youth and journalists, this research attempted to identify the meaning of the term “the post 80s generation” from the perspectives of the mass media and the interviewees. Our findings indicated that the post 80s generation seemed not to constitute a moral panic in terms of the elements mentioned above. The post 80s generation in fact had both positive and negative sides. Rather than serving as agent in producing moral panic, mass media, including social media, projected multiple images of the post 80s generation. Our study also identified a “sense of local consciousness” among the post 80s generation which merits further study.
published_or_final_version
Criminology
Master
Master of Social Sciences

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Mills, Kelly. "The gay panic defense and moral disengagement in mock jurors." Thesis, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10109746.

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The purpose of this study was to examine moral disengagement strategies, such as dehumanization, responsibility displacement, and victim blame, in mock juror decision making in a case involving the gay panic defense. Mock jurors with high levels of moral disengagement were expected to find the defendant guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter more often than mock jurors with low levels of moral disengagement. Mock jurors read one of two vignettes that outlined a murder case in which the defendant claimed he was provoked either by an unwanted homosexual advanced from the victim, or an attempted robbery and assault by the victim. They were then asked choose between the charges of manslaughter and murder for the defendant. It was hypothesized that the defendant using the gay panic defense would receive more findings of manslaughter than the defendant in the robbery and assault vignette. This hypothesis was not supported, as the defendant in the robbery and assault vignette received more verdicts finding him guilty of manslaughter than the defendant in the gay panic vignette. However, 57% of mock jurors still supported the use of the gay panic defense. Moral disengagement did not have a significant effect on mock juror decision making in either vignette. Mock jurors with high levels of victim blame found the defendant guilty of manslaughter more often than those with low levels of victim blame. Limitations of this study and implications for society and the legal system are discussed, and future directions for research are offered.

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Whitley, Daniel Edward. "Moral Panic and Political Rhetoric in the Early American Republic." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83575.

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This study analyzes the reporting and editorializing in several major American newspapers during the height of the Citizen Genêt Affair in July and August, 1793. A hybrid form of sociological moral panic theory, focused predominantly on the "iteration" of moral panics and the language used to communicate them, is used to understand the dynamics of the information landscape of 1793. Specific attention is paid to the effects of time and space, personal and political bias, and incendiary historical rhetoric on reporting of and reactions to Genêt's actions. In doing so, this study highlights possible flaws or blind spots in both moral panic theory and historiography, and brings new understanding to the media environment in which America's political traditions gestated. Brief connections are drawn between this historical information landscape and series of events and contemporary concerns with regards to social media and incendiary political rhetoric.
Master of Arts

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Gresham, Brian Michael. "The Missile Gap: A Moral Panic for an Atomic Age." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/64369.

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This research is examines the nuclear arms race that dominated the 20th century, during which the United States manufactured and stockpiled a large number of strategic weapons. Using moral panic theory, the roles of the President of the United States and the media are examined in facilitating public interest in the manufacture of these weapons from 1955-1990. The project uses both time series and historical analyses to determine the extent to which the strategic nuclear weapons crisis was a moral panic created to insure public acceptance of such this massive defense sector expenditure. The time series analysis reveals that the President does have the ability to influence the public via the State of the Union Address, but that influence does not extend strongly to the media. However, what influence the President does have appears to be correlated to the use of substantive rhetoric, and the percentage of the speech dedicated to the issue. Finally, the historical analysis demonstrates that the moral panic moves through three phases. The first phase is characterized by grassroots concern over the technical gap represented by Sputnik 1's launch was utilized by interested actors to accomplish their goals. During the second phase, this concern transformed into an institutional technique utilized for deflecting institutional challenges when the moral panic moved into an interest group model. The final phase occurs during the rise of the "security state", when elites begin using the moral panic to achieve their own ends.
Ph. D.

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Sutherland, Ruari Shaw. "Moral panic 2.0 : white nationalism, convergence culture, and racialized media events." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/25385.

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In the four decades since Stanley Cohen (1972) first theorised the ‘moral panic’, there has been immense technological change in the field of communications and media. Whilst Cohen’s original model relies on elite-driven mediated narratives, I argue that moral panics have taken on a memetic quality in the convergent and participatory mediascape. In other words: in an age of social media, moral panic discourses are increasingly open to contestation, reinterpretation, and recirculation by multiple actors and groups. In this thesis, I examine one such group – the web’s largest white nationalist (WN) forum, Stormfront. To do so, I trace three racialized media events as they circulate on and through the Forum. Here, I show how the mechanics of the moral panic have fundamentally shifted in the digital age. I explore the means by which Stormfront users exploit this semi-democratised mediascape in an attempt to ‘manage’ and exploit moral panics surrounding episodes of racialized violence. To this end, I explore the topologically entangled shuttling back and forth of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ lives and spaces to argue for a more-than-digital geography of computer mediated communication. Here, I show how the Forum’s ‘collective voice’ is often given expression through selective quotation by mainstream media surrounding racialized moral panics. This process of remediation, I argue, allows explicitly racist groups fugitive access to mainstream discourse, and turns mainstream media outlets into unwitting nodes in a white nationalist broadcast network. However, I argue that this public-facing process, opens WNs up to increased scrutiny, leading to strategic and contingent deployments of contradictory repertoires of race. In doing so, I examine repertoires of race in such WN interventions - highlighting their flexible and contingent construction of racialized categories in the negotiation of contemporary structures of feeling (Williams 1977; Anderson 2014). I contend that a digitally-inflected antiracism must attend to the contingent, translocal, and assembled nature of racism online if it is to be effective.

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Greco, Christopher A. P. "Falling Back on the Concept of (Moral) Panic: Questioning Significance, Practicality, and Costs." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/34187.

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For over 40 years, the term moral panic and concept to which it is adjoined have been used throughout the socio-criminological literature as a means of describing collective overreactions to perceived wrongs. Since the 1980s, the concept has also been criticized for its inability to adapt to differing moral viewpoints and research paradigms. To address these criticisms and question the significance of moral panic’s continued use, this paper works to redefine the concept from its theoretical foundation to practical employment. A contextual-constructionist/post-positivist approach is, first, used to weigh claims of fact against an imperfect understanding of ‘the truth’. Moral panic is then defined as a means of describing collective, corrective-intended behaviour based on an irrational belief that exaggerates the threat posed by a social problem. To test and further nuance this definition, the Parliament of Canada’s decision to pass four bills that introduced or amended section 172.1 (luring a child) of the Criminal Code of Canada is deconstructed. Using a Historical Dialectic-Relational Approach to analyze the transcripts of House of Commons and Senate debates and committee meetings related to bills C-15A, C-277, C-2, and C-10, the concept of moral panic is found to be an appropriate means of describing certain forms of collective behaviour. An outline of how members of parliament spoke, during the legislative process, of the media, expert witnesses, Internet child lurers, and victims of child sexual abuse provides additional context. The paper concludes by arguing that the moral panic concept can be mobilized in a way that is theoretically justifiable, adaptable to differing moral viewpoints, and of practical use.

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Beer, Sarah. "From moral panic to moral narrative: The construction of 'The Prostitute' in "The Province" newspaper, 1993--2003." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/26848.

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Based on previous literature, the dominant discourse of 'The Prostitute' was established, deeming it a high-risk trade, among other personal characteristics commonly associated with sex workers. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on a widely distributed provincial newspaper, The Province, in order to assess any meaningful discursive shifts in the discourse of 'The Prostitute' between 1993 and 2003. Notions of risk and discourse were incorporated into prior literature on moral panic theory. With the use of this theory, it was found that this rise in media attention could not be said to be a moral panic, but instead, a moral narrative. The latter term was used to signify the moral dimension of a discourse in which the message is directed toward the victim and pertains largely to a discourse of risk and proper risk management, otherwise implicating the subject their victimization. It was found that The Province reinforced the dominant discourse of 'The Prostitute' by dissociating the Missing Women from murdered sex workers from other locations. Setting them apart to be acknowledged, emphasized the quasi-victim status given those involved in the sex industry. The murders were incorporated into a moral narrative that served as a warning to sex workers, thus problematizing them as victims. Presented as either illegitimate choice makers or victims of social ills and prostitution itself, the problems identified throughout the coverage of this case pertained mostly to a serial killer, while the solutions offered spoke largely to a need to get women off drugs and out of prostitution. This again reaffirmed the high-risk discourse of prostitution, rather than recognizing them as 'true' victims, and considering realistic and meaningful options that might reduce the particular vulnerability of street sex workers. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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Kelleher, Shane. "Moral panic, organised crime and the threat to civil liberties in Ireland." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ56184.pdf.

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Woller, Leanne. "The fear campaign : moral panic, boat people and the 2001 Federal election /." Title page, contents and introduction only, 2002. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09AR/09arw864.pdf.

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Dandoy, Arnaud. "Humanitarian insecurity, risk and moral panic: toward and critical criminology of aid." Thesis, University of Kent, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.591924.

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This dissertation explores the construction of humanitarian insecurity as a social problem; more particularly, it suggests the rise of a moral panic about a perceived "new and growing threat" to humanitarian actors in the post-Cold \Vax era. Whilst there is nothing that has radically changed in the nature of the threat to humanitarian actors throughout the twentieth century and earlier, the grmving perception of "shrinking humanitarian space" has encouraged the adoption of security policies that deepen the conditions for some of the problems that humanitarian actors face today. By linking moral panic theory with Bourdieu's social theory, this thesis shows that disproportionate reactions to humanitarian security can be sociologically understood, not as a collective mistake in understanding, but, rather, as a meaningful response to effects of hysteresis in the field of humanitarian aid. Particularly, it shows that the collapse of faith in the pre-modem humanitarian system and the rise of new ways of working "on" rather than "in" conflict precipitated a deeper sense of disorientation about what humanitarian actors stand for in the post-Cold War era. This, in turn, has provided a fertile ground for a moral panic about humanitarian insecurity to take root and flourish, as well as for humanitarian security experts to promote the adoption of a 'culture of security' across the aid community in an effective way. By encouraging reflexivity about the social processes and relations through which specific types of knowledge on humanitarian insecurity are transfonned into power, this dissertation helps develop a critical criminology of aid that breaks with expert and media predispositions towards the status quo and engages with the ways in which existing power structures directly contribute to the very "problem" of humanitarian insecurity.

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Lucas, Tim. "Youth gangs in Santa Cruz, California : constructing and contesting a moral panic." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.245727.

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Pearce, Julia Michelle. "Asylum seekers in the UK : A social psycholegical understanding of a moral panic." Thesis, London Metropolitan University, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.536727.

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Daggett, Chelsea. "U.K. youth television: moral panic and the process of U.S. adaptation in Skins." Thesis, Boston University, 2013. https://hdl.handle.net/2144/12081.

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Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University
U.K. youth television increasingly gains popularity in the U.S. as international format sales and online viewing increases. Both U.S. and U.K. youth television are produced in an environment o f moral panic over youth. Y outh programs in the U.K. address the moral panic of"Broken Britain" and create an alternative narrative about youth. This liberating aspect of U.K. youth programs is migrating to the U.S. in the form of shows like Skins and Misfits. The original versions of these programs are very popular, and when these programs are adapted, they remain popular but lose their unique stylistic qualities and their alternative political messages about youth. This thesis examines how the process of international adaptation homogenizes U.K. youth television, making it acceptable to censorship groups in the U.S. This process affects the quality of U.S. adaptations of U.K. youth television by removing the liberating stylistic and subcultural aspects of the original program that allow U.K. youth television to address and combat moral panic over youth. Ultimately, although U.S. youth audiences would benefit from alternative narratives to that of moral panic, until U.S. producers find a way to translate the innovative stylistic and subcultural aspects of U.K. youth programs, adaptations of U.K. youth programs will not be able to provide this alternative. Incorporating generic tropes and broadcasting on cable networks may allow these adaptations to fulfill their potential as sources of alternative narratives about youth.

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Pappa, Evdokia. "Sports spectacle, media and doping : the representations of Olympic drug cases in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008." Thesis, Brunel University, 2013. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7477.

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This thesis explores the depiction of doping in the press. My interest in the topic stemmed from an early personal experience in competitive athletics where I was exposed to an in-sports reality that tolerated the use of performance-enhancing substances. However, references to doping in the media appeared to depict it in a different way. In order to investigate the divergence, the thesis analysed the reporting of two Olympic Games, namely Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. It focused on empirical data and thus all articles that referenced doping were collected one month prior, during and one month after the two Olympic Games. In total 1274 articles were collected and analysed. Adopting a post-structuralist approach, the discourse analysis of the data leads to the identification of journalistic techniques that constructed discursive statements of doping. It was observed that first of all, in the case of highly publicised drug cases, these statements could be understood as constructing a moral panic episode. Secondly, the same discursive statements were circulated in the press even in the absence of positive doping samples. The thesis draws on the theories of moral regulation and governmentality to make sense of the constant presence of doping discursive statements in the press. It argues that inducting doping into sport spectacle makes its depiction seem apolitical and disconnected from society. However, in-depth theorisation of the phenomenon shows that its mediated construction plays an active role in influencing public policy.

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Bremner, Melanie Anne. "Youth and youth crime, a moral panic. a content analysis of four Ontario newspapers." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp04/mq24449.pdf.

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Armstrong, Martha. "A tale of two videos, media event, moral panic and the Canadian Airborne Regiment." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0005/MQ43829.pdf.

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Armstrong, Martha 1968. "A tale of two videos : media event, moral panic and the Canadian Airborne Regiment." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28242.

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This thesis examines how and why two amateur videos, broadcast across Canada in 1995, contributed to the disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. A brief history of the Airborne highlights discipline problems that were known to exist before the videos were broadcast. Common assumptions about images, particularly amateur video images, are explored. The concept of the "media event" is used to show how mediation magnified the videos' impact. A detailed examination of the videos and their constructions as news stories demonstrates how narrative frames and the newsmaking process in general shaped what the public saw. A general content analysis of the media coverage surrounding the videos shows how a moral panic developed when Canadian values were threatened. It is argued that the videos and reaction to them shed more light on attitudes Canadians wanted to keep hidden than they did on any secrets the military harboured.

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Card, Stacey L. "Children and information communication technologies in the media : a study using moral panic theory." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2014. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/65827/2/Stacey_Card_Thesis.pdf.

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This thesis is an investigation of the media's representation of children and ICT. The study draws on moral panic theory and Queensland newspaper media, to identify the impact of newspaper reporting on the public's perceptions of young people and ICT.

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Smith, Tanya Dawne. "Pimping and prostitution in Halifax in the early 1990s, the evolution of a moral panic." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ57327.pdf.

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Hull, Thomas William Allan. "Selling Moral Panic: Social Scientific Criticism of Movies and Comic Books for Children, 1925-1955." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1263949945.

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Newman-Storen, Renée. "Performance Anxiety: An exploration of spectacle, spectatorship and moral panic in the twenty-first century." Thesis, Newman-Storen, Renée (2010) Performance Anxiety: An exploration of spectacle, spectatorship and moral panic in the twenty-first century. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2010. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/5189/.

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In the last decade there has been an explosion of new technologies that enable discourse, power and truth formations to be produced, contested and dispersed. As communication and information technologies continue to evolve, so too do the ways in which individuals construct identities and form communities. The notion of a moral panic is utilised to describe those critical moments in time and space when social norms are perceived to be under threat. I suggest that the complex interplay of spectacle, spectatorship and moral panic involved in such instances can be both conceptualised and interrogated as performance. This dissertation draws upon two distinct performance paradigms – one theoretical and the other practical – to inform a critical reading of three significant ‘social events’ of the last decade: the drug-trafficking trial of Australian woman Schapelle Corby in Indonesia in 2005, the end-of-life legal case focused on American woman Terri Schiavo, which culminated in 2005, and the race relations associated with the ‘Redfern riots’ which occurred in Sydney in 2004. Informed by a range of theoretical positions from Michel Foucault, Zygmunt Bauman, Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Baz Kershaw, and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, this dissertation fleshes out contemporary understandings of mediatised spectacle and spectatorship, with the aim of revealing the ways in which they contribute to creating and sustaining moral panic. A critical finding of the dissertation is that through both subjectification and objectification processes the central players and the spectators become indivisible from the spectacle itself, thus maintaining the interweaving cycle of spectator, spectacle and moral panic. By exploring the ways in which people interpret and respond to social phenomena, the possibilities for performance and social theory can be extended.

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Hamerton, Christopher Thomas. "Crime, deviance, and the social discovery of moral panic in eighteenth century London, 1712-1790." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2016. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/412011/.

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This thesis utilises the theoretical device of Folk Devils and Moral Panics, instigated by Stanley Cohen and developed by Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, to explore the discovery of, and social response to, crime and deviance in eighteenth-century London. The thesis argues that London and its media in the eighteenth-century can be identified as the initiating historical site for what might now be termed public order moral panics. The scholarly foundation for this hypothesis is provided by two extensively researched chapters which evaluate and contextualise the historiography of public opinion and media alongside the unique character and power located within the burgeoning metropolis. This foundation is followed by a trio of supportive case studies, which examine and inform on novel historical episodes of social deviance and criminality. These episodes are selected to replicate a sequence of observable folk devils within Cohen’s original typology – youth violence, substance abuse, and predatory sex offending. Which are transposed historically as the Mohocks in 1712, Madam Geneva between 1720-1751, and the London Monster in 1790. Taken together, these three episodes provide historical lineage of moral panic which traverses much of the eighteenth-century, allowing for social change, and points of convergence and divergence, to be observed. Furthermore, these discrete episodes of moral panic are used to reveal the social problems of the eighteenth-century capital that informed the control narratives that followed. Consequently this thesis makes an important contribution to the understanding of both moral panic theory, and the historiography of crime and deviance, and posits that the current discourse on folk devils and moral panics can be extended via the exploration of the moral crises of earlier centuries.

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Layn, Lauren. "From the Magic Bullet to Family Mealtime: An Analysis of the Obesity Epidemic in Time and Newsweek." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/13256.

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This thesis examines news articles to see if obesity has been framed as a moral panic by looking at how the coverage understands the causes of obesity and its solutions. A qualitative textual analysis of 100 articles and 28 images from Time and Newsweek was done spanning 1986 to 2012. I found that the obesity "epidemic" was first discussed as problem of individual responsibility and that the best cure was medicine. The narrative shifted to childhood obesity around 2004 and cited parents as the responsible party while suggesting family bonding as a solution to childhood obesity. I find that the media dialogue around obesity points to individuals rather than systemic factors as the cause of obesity and, in so doing, takes the focus off of social and economic inequalities that are also factors in the obesity epidemic.

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Rohloff, Amanda. "Climate change, moral panic, and civilization : on the development of global warming as a social problem." Thesis, Brunel University, 2012. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6973.

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This study combines moral panic with the figurational sociology of Norbert Elias to explore how climate change has developed as a social problem. The central argument is that,through combining the short-term focus of moral panic with the long-term focus of Elias, we can examine the interplay between planned and unplanned developments in both the perception and reality of climate change. The first part of the research consisted of discourse analysis of a variety of different texts from 1800 to the present. These were used to explore the long-term development of climatechange as emerging from an ecological civilizing process. The second stage of the research related these developments to moral panics, arguing that the emergence of climate change can only be understood by exploring the interplay between long-term processes and short-term campaigns. The third part of the research explored these historical developments at the individual level, examining the notion of individual ecological civilizing processes. 15 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with climate change ‘activists’ and ‘non-activists’, comparing how their biographical developments related to ecological civilizing processes and moral panics. The final part of the research compared climate change with five other empirical examples of moral panics, to explore the civilizing and decivilizing processes and civilizing offensives that occur before, during, and after the panics. The central aim was to demonstrate the complexity of moral panics, and to aid in the reformulation of the concepts of moral panic and decivilization. Through a synthesis of Elias and moral panic, as applied to the example of climate change, this study aimed to: critically assess the development of climate change; to reassess the concept of decivilization and the relation between civilizing processes and offensives; and to reformulate the concept of moral panic, including suggesting how moral panic research ought to be undertaken.

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Williams, Andrew. "'There ain't no peds in Paulsgrove' : social control, vigilantes, and the misapplication of moral panic theory." Thesis, University of Reading, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.398350.

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Harris, Kira Jada. "One percent motorcycle clubs: Has the media constructed a moral panic in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia?" Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2009. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1881.

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate an instrument designed to assess the influence of the media on opinions regarding the one percent motorcycle clubs in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, establishing whether the media had incited a moral panic towards the clubs. The concept of the moral panic, developed by Stanley Cohen iii ( 1972), is the widespread fear towards a social group by events that are overrepresented and exaggerated. Exploring the concept of a moral panic towards the one percent sub-culture, this study compares the perceptions from two groups of non-members in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. One group of participants had interacted with club members (n =13); the other had no direct contact with club members and identified themselves as basing their opinions towards the clubs on information from the media (n =13). It was hypothesised that the two patticipant groups would differ on their opinions regarding the clubs' autonomy, brotherhood, the righteous biker model, and the perceived image of one percent members. Participants were requested to complete the Perception of the One Percent Motorcycle Sub-culture Questionnaire. Quantitative data were analysed using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test. The findings suggest little differences between the groups, indicating a moral panic towards one percent motorcycle clubs has not been identified by the instrument. Recommendations for improvement in the research design for a comprehensive study include modification to sampling techniques, Likert scales and analysis techniques. Further research is required to validate the present findings.

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Groling, Jessica Sarah. "Hounding the urban fox : a Critical Discourse Analysis of a moral panic with an animal folk devil." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/26315.

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In June 2010 an urban fox (Vulpes vulpes) attacked twin baby girls in their bedroom in Hackney, East London. The story made national newspaper headlines for weeks to follow and elicited commentary from concerned city-dwellers, pest controllers, foxhunters, politicians, scientists and animal protectionists. Many considered urban foxes a growing menace, branding them overabundant, out of place and more aggressive than their rural counterparts. Hunters pointed to the ban on hunting with dogs as a possible cause of a supposed explosion in the urban fox population and as a manifestation of urban ignorance regarding wildlife management. Others defended the foxes' place in the city and warned against knee-jerk reactions to one-off incidents. However, the response from many public and political figures to media reports of fox attacks was to call for urgent action on what is ostensibly a problem of animal behaviour. This thesis examines the urban fox attack phenomenon as a form of moral panic. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of a large sample of tabloid and broadsheet national newspaper articles, as well as a selection of television documentaries, pest control industry publications and lobby group materials spanning five years (2009–2014), is used to track the emergence and development of this moral panic and to examine how it is tied to anxieties surrounding not only human/animal relations in urban space, but also human social conflict more widely. In so doing, the thesis contributes a new perspective to the study of moral panics by reflecting on the implications for moral panic theory of ‘bringing animals in’.

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Chatelain, Elise. "The Discursive Production of Subjectivity in Television News: Reflecting the Other on the Obese Child's Body." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2005. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/221.

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In this paper, I expand on poststructuralist and feminist theories of the body, gender, and subjectivity through an analysis of media discourse on childhood obesity. Through textual and narrative analyses of news segments on childhood obesity, I demonstrate that the obese child's body, as an abnormal body, is represented as a text of the 'abnormal' conditions in which that body is produced. Thus, the single-mother family structure and/or nonwhite and working class families -- families saturated with the excessive, out-of-control subjectivity of the Other-- are visible on the excessive, out-ofcontrol body of the obese child. I will argue that the discourse surrounding childhood obesity is indicative of a moral panic, where children's bodies are used to express a fear of the destabilization of the normative family structure and a fear of an irrational, excessive, over-consuming society saturated with the subjectivity of the Other.

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Kidd, Sarah A. "The search for moral order : the Panic of 1819 and the culture of the early American republic /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p3052186.

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Erchen, Shi. "Exploring Media Panic Discourses: News Media Attitudes toward Digital Games in China." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Medier och kommunikation, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-445893.

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Previous research demonstrated the phenomenon of moral panics on “dangerous” games mostly from Western perspectives, regarding media violence and deviant behaviour. With the development of media technology, the term “media panic” has evolved from moral panic, representing the debates and fearful emotion from the public when a new media technology has been created. Digital games as a form of media technology have been developed to be widely played on various platforms in recent decades, which have not only brought concerns to the Western but also to Chinese society. The present study will introduce media panic on digital games in China by analyzing news reports from three Chinese mainstream news media: People’s Daily, Xinhua Daily Telegraph and Wen Wei Po (Shanghai). Content analysis will be adopted as the main method to process the news data (N = 445) which are collected from five periods between 2002 and 2020 (2002-2004, 2007-2009, 2012-2014, 2017-2019, 2020). Different phases and features of the panic will be analyzed through the classical moral panic theories of Cohen, Goode and Ben-Yehuda, and the media panic theory of Drotner. Topics of game addiction, Internet cafes, policies on the game industry, cultural innovation, development of esports will be explored when investigating the changing media attitudes toward digital games in the Chinese context.

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Cassells, Laetitia. "Magic to manic : the evolution of the zombie figure In fiction and its basis In moral panic dissemination." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/57236.

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The lack of research into the Zombie figure in popular literature is examined in this study in contrast to the sociological and film studies of the genre. The value of the Zombie literary figure is examined as an example of cultural discourse using Bourdieu s field of cultural exchange framework. A cultural studies approach is used to identify the value of examination of the relationship between consumer demand and the external cultural influences on consumer motivations. This is done through firstly examining the introduction of the Zombie figure into literary and public discourse, as well as to examine the cultural significance of the Zombie figure specifically and the horror genre as a whole. In order to identify changing consumer demands a statistically valid sample of Zombie titles was captured in a bibliography using content analysis on epi- and paratextual elements of definition of the Zombie figure. The content analysis of the Zombie titles in the bibliography identifies several categories of Zombie figure, as well as identifies changing trends in the Zombie horror genre. The compiled bibliography of Zombie fiction represents the only such bibliography in existence that spans from 1921-2013. The external cultural influences on the demand for Zombie horror literature will be juxtaposed with the prevalence and dissipation of moral panics. Conclusions on the influence of moral panics on Zombie figures are drawn through a juxtaposition of identified moral panics and the prevalence of Zombie categories. The representation of moral panics in the horror literature produced by a culture examines not only the expression of the dominant cultural ideology but also speaks to the creation of cultural artefacts within a culture. Furthermore, the application of the traditional journalism and social sciences related theory of moral panics to a wider mass communication landscape, such as popular fiction publishing, introduces a new avenue of research in readership and publishing, and speaks to the significance of books as cultural objects. This research can be applied by publishers and researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the socio-cultural landscape s influence on reader motivations. This study serves to identify categories of Zombies present in fiction, as well as to illustrate the applicability of moral panics to the publishing of fiction as a mass communication medium. The findings of this study will enlighten the publishing industry about the motivations of readers as well as suggest the possibility of predictive analysis of the marketplace.
Dissertation (MIS)--University of Pretoria, 2015.
tm2016
Information Science
MIS
Unrestricted

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Demissie, Meskerem. "Media representations of Young People in the UK Riots of 2011." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-72013.

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This study is a discourse analysis of media representations of young people’s participation in the summer riots that spread across the UK in August 2011. Drawing on articles published in three UK newspapers The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Sun this paper critically assesses the ways in which the media identified the behaviour of young people as symptomatic of a general moral decline in British society. Along with the media portrayal of children and young people during these events, the study also highlights the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a further way of questioning the reporting practices of mainstream media. Articles 2, 12 and 13 will have specific focus in the study, in order to evaluate the media’s recurrent misrepresentation of young people’s participation in decision making on matters concerning their own wellbeing.

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Битюк, Інна Вікторівна, Инна Викторовна Битюк, Inna Viktorivna Bytiuk, Тетяна Василівна Кузнєцова, Татьяна Васильевна Кузнецова, and Tetiana Vasylivna Kuznietsova. "Основи масовокомунікаційних механізмів формування моральної паніки (на матеріалі видання "Ваш шанс")." Thesis, Видавництво СумДУ, 2011. http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/15293.

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Rahm, Oskar. "Scandal and Stigmatization : Regulating Sexual Difference in Contemporary Egypt." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-445533.

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Mason, John Paul. "Corporate Media Framing of Political Rhetoric: The Creation of a Moral Panic in the wake of September 11th 2001." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34937.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the rhetoric and subsequent media framing of President George W. Bush during the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and how such frames have been able to generate and sustain a national moral panic. While a number of scholars have explored the effect of presidential rhetoric in generating panic (53; Cohen 1972; Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994; Hawdon 2001; Kappeler and Kappeler 2004), none have evaluated the effect of media framing on such rhetoric. This study will use three major sources of data: (1) National Public Opinion Data from Gallup Poll, (2) daily USA Today news articles, and (3) rates of international terrorism from the U.S. State Department. Employing a content analysis of USA Today articles pertaining to terrorism, I will evaluate the relevant themes used by the corporate media to frame the Bush administrationâ s rhetoric, and further analyze the relationship between such rhetoric and the collective conscience across the eight years of the Bush presidency, while controlling for rates of international terrorism.
Master of Science

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42

Payne, Georgina. "After the panic : an investigation of the relationship between the reporting and remembering of child related crime." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2014. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/16783.

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This thesis considers why some crimes persist beyond the moment of newsworthiness and how they are able to transcend this period of intense reporting to become a feature of popular memory. The central argument is that the popular memory of a crime is built up over time through a synthesis of public discourses, which are predominantly developed in news reporting, people s everyday experience and the normative social frameworks of everyday life. A temporally sensitive analysis of two case studies, the murder of James Bulger and the murder of Sarah Payne, tests this hypothesis by exploring the connections and disconnections between the ongoing reporting of these crimes and the remembering of them. The study finds that the personal past and public discourse intertwine in remembered accounts of these crimes and considers that this is evidence of the ways audiences utilise crime news as an imaginative resource for understanding crime and criminality more broadly. It can thus be said that audiences use the news to frame, but not define their understandings of the world around us.

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Tartari, Morena. "Chi non salta è l'uomo nero! Costruzione sociale della pedofilia e panico morale: uno studio etnografico." Doctoral thesis, Università degli studi di Padova, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11577/3422554.

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Using, in the frame of Grounded Theory, the concepts of moral panic, risk and moral regulation, this study analyzes from a sociological point of view the social construction of ‘paedophilia problem’. Beginning from a sensational case of ritual abuse, this study examines the role of moral entrepreneurs, interest groups and media in constructing the ‘paedophilia social problem’ and in the emersion of the related moral panics. After a theoretical discussion on the sociology of moral panic and its in progress reconceptualization, the study analyzes the results of 49 in-depth interviews to social actors involved in the case, the participant observation of the community where the case emerged, the participant observation of eight public events organized by interest groups, newspaper articles and television programs about the case. In the conclusions I discuss the role of risk society and moralization processes in constructing the paedophilia problem, and in particular the ritual abuse problem. Furthermore, I attempt to reconceptualize some categories of the classical models of moral panic sociology.
Utilizzando, nel frame della Grounded Theory, i concetti di panico morale, rischio e regolazione morale, questo studio analizza da un punto di vista sociologico il processo di costruzione sociale della pedofilia. Partendo da un caso sensazionale di abuso rituale la ricerca prende in considerazione il ruolo degli imprenditori morali, dei gruppi di interesse e dei media nella costruzione del problema sociale «pedofilia» e nell’emersione dei panici morali collegati a tale problema. Dopo una discussione teorica sulla sociologia del panico morale e la sua riconcettualizzazione in progress, lo studio analizza i risultati dell’osservazione partecipante condotta nella comunità in cui si è sviluppato il caso, di 49 interviste in profondità ad attori sociali coinvolti nel casi, dell’osservazione partecipante condotta in otto eventi pubblici organizzati dai gruppi di interesse, nonché della stampa quotidiana e dei programmi televisivi che hanno riguardato il caso. Nelle conclusioni discuto il ruolo della società del rischio e dei processi di moralizzazione nella costruzione del problema pedofilia, e in particolare dell’abuso rituale. Inoltre tento di riconcettualizzare alcune categorie appartenenti ai modelli classici della sociologia del panico morale.

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Raask, Nathalie, and Jenny Törnblad. "Socialsekreterares agerande gentemot ungdomar med ”problemskapande beteende" : En kvalitativ studie av hur användandet av BBIC upplevs och vilka beteenden som anses skapa problem." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete (SA), 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-35343.

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The aim of this study is to examine what social workers consider as ‘challenging behaviour’ among adolescents, but also to examine the connection between investigation and intervention in cases where such behaviour is being displayed. The questions of the study are to examine what social workers think of the instrument of assessment BBIC (Children’s Needs in Focus) and how the usage of BBIC affect social workers understanding of challenging behaviour. Moreover, it is a qualitative study and the respondents are all social workers with various length of professional experience who work with making decisions in juvenile welfare cases. The social workers’ opinion about which behaviours among adolescents that were important to intervene in could be understood with what was considered as moral panic for some behaviour. The social workers use of and opinion towards BBIC could be understood in relation to practical theory, tacit knowledge and naïve theories.

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45

Snowden, Suzanne. "Is “Sluta skjut” the silver bullet to reduce violent crime in Malmö? A constructivist grounded theory approach exploring public perception of crime and crime prevention programmes." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för hälsa och samhälle (HS), 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-25523.

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Higa, Gustavo Lucas. "Serpentes Negras, pânico moral e políticas de humanização nos presídios em São Paulo (1983 - 1987)." Universidade de São Paulo, 2017. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8132/tde-02042018-152544/.

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Na década de 1980 o sistema brasileiro de segurança pública experienciou mudanças, no contexto da transição democrática. Foi nesse momento que se buscou efetivar, em São Paulo, a agenda política conhecida como Políticas de Humanização dos Presídios. Trataremos aqui de uma dessas experiências: um canal de comunicação e de representação de presos no sistema penitenciário paulista chamado Comissões de Solidariedade. Analisaremos como tais Comissões foram deslegitimadas publicamente por meio de uma denúncia: a existência de um grupo criminoso, organizado por presos no interior da Penitenciária do Estado, e que teria se infiltrado nas Comissões de Solidariedade. O grupo foi anunciado como Serpentes Negras. Desta forma, pretende-se descrever a tentativa de efetivação dessas políticas e como a disputa de interesses afetou os rumos das reformas, se refletindo nas praticas internas às prisões; busca-se também recuperar os efeitos produzidos pela denúncia e, com isso, o debate público em torno das políticas de segurança e dos Direitos Humanos no período, bem como a formação e a circulação de um novo discurso sobre o crime organizado em São Paulo, cuja atualidade não pode ser desprezada.
In the 1980s the Brazilian public security system experienced changes in the context of democratic transition. It was at this moment that the political agenda known as \"Humanization Policies of Prisons\" was sought to be implemented in São Paulo. We will deal with one of these experiences: a channel of communication and representation of prisoners in the prison system of São Paulo called Commissions for Solidarity. We will analyze how these Commissions were publicly delegitimized by means of a complaint: the existence of a criminal group, organized by prisoners inside the State Penitentiary, and which would have infiltrated the Solidarity Commissions. The group was announced as Black Serpents. In this way, the intention is to describe the attempt to put these policies into effect and how the dispute of interests affected the direction of the reforms, being reflected in the internal practices of the prisons; It also seeks to recover the effects produced by the denunciation and thus the public debate on security and human rights policies in the period, as well as the formation and circulation of a new discourse on organized crime in São Paulo, whose actuality can not be overlooked.

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Evetovics, Arion. "Media portrayal of a Swedish 'Crime Capital' - A master’s thesis focusing on newspapers’ depictions of shootings in Malmö." Thesis, Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för hälsa och samhälle (HS), 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-25835.

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During the past couple of years, shootings in Malmö have been given considerable amount of attention and not the least by the news media. The tabloids have often been dominated by headlines which indicate an increase of violent shootings in Sweden’s third largest city. Comparing shootings in Malmö to other cities in Sweden is a difficult task as the local police collects data based on different criteria, nevertheless comparisons are frequently made. The objective of this project is to examine how newspapers portray shootings in Malmö by analyzing articles from major newspapers in Sweden. This thesis focuses on the language that is used and in the light of moral panics theory it is discusses whether the news articles in question are instigating moral panics. It is evaluated what discourses are produced and reproduced by the language used in the context of shootings in Malmö through critical discourse analysis (CDA). The main findings reveal that news media tend to promote certain ideas about the severity and the circumstances regarding shootings in Malmö that are symbolic for the instigation of moral panics. In the context of shootings in Malmö the most frequent points that are raised is that shootings are “symptomatic”, shootings are becoming normalized and shootings pose a threat to “normal people” as well. The main implications from this project is that future research is needed on the subject of how data regarding shootings is collected by to police in order to conduct research similar to this. There is a need of a uniformity within the police regarding the definition and classification of shootings in order to facilitate research that compares shootings across the nation. As a follow up to the current project it would be beneficial to investigate the social reactions to the style of journalism discussed in this paper.

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Bitencourt, Antonio Belamar Oliveira de. "Risco e pânico moral: uma análise sociológica do medo do crime na revista Superinteressante (2008-2012)." Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, 2013. http://repositorio.ufsm.br/handle/1/6240.

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
This study, a sociological perspective, has aimed to investigate the possible existence of a relation between the social phenomena fear of crime and moral panic. The study was realized through a research in Superinteressante magazine. Its purpose is to understand how this magazine emphasizes in its reports/articles the issues/themes which contain the concepts of fear of crime , risk and moral panic as central issues. The first concept, fear of crime , is based in Borges (2011) and Glassner ([1999] 2003), being portrayed as a social construction. The second concept, risk, is based in Giddens ([1990] 1991), where it is conceived as more individual, and in Beck ([1986] 2010) where it is global. The third and last concept, moral panic , is guided by the ideal classification of Goode & Ben-Yehuda ([1994b] 2009). The research has the hypothesis that the fear of crime here treated as a social phenomenon and derived from a social construction influences negatively in the conception of risk of potential criminal victimization. Therefore, there is a direct relationship between fear of crime and moral panic, with risk being present in this discussion, either directly or indirectly.
No presente trabalho, de cunho sociológico, proponho-me a investigar, a possível existência da relação entre os fenômenos sociais Medo do Crime e pânico moral. O trabalho foi realizado através de pesquisa na revista Superinteressante. O intuito é compreender como a revista Superinteressante dá ênfase, em suas reportagens/artigos, a assuntos/temáticas que tenham os conceitos de Medo do crime , risco e de pânico moral, como temas centrais. O primeiro conceito, Medo do Crime , baseado em Borges (2011) e Glassner ([1999] 2003), tratam o Medo do Crime como uma construção social. O segundo conceito, risco, será baseado em Giddens ([1990] 1991), um risco percebido como mais individual, e Beck ([1986] 2010) tratando o risco como global. O terceiro conceito, pânico moral, será norteado, pela tipificação ideal de Goode & Ben-Yehuda ([1994b] 2009). A pesquisa tem como hipótese que o Medo do Crime , aqui compreendido com um fenômeno social, derivado de uma construção social, influencia negativamente na concepção acerca do risco de potencial vitimização criminal, havendo, portanto, relação direta entre Medo do Crime e pânico moral, estando o risco presente na discussão, direta ou indiretamente.

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Nilsson, Madeleine. "Fångars anpassning i samhället : debatten i massmedia om anpassningen och dess anknytning till lagen." Thesis, Stockholm University, Department of Social Work, 2004. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-363.

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Syftet med den här studien har varit att belysa hur fångars situation, med avseende på deras anpassning i samhället, uttrycks i massmedia samt hur de uttryckta föreställningarna om anpassning kan relateras till lagtexten. Studien är kvalitativ och den empiri som använts är debattartiklar i Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet. Till dessa artiklar har följande frågeställningar ställts:

-Vilka förhållanden anses som problem i massmediala diskussioner beträffande fångarnas situation? Hur beskrivs dessa och vilka förslag till lösningar diskuteras?

-Hur kan sådana förhållanden relateras till fångarnas anpassning i samhället och hur kan den i sin tur kopplas till lagens intentioner?

Resultatet av den första frågeställningen har analyserats utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv och med hjälp av begreppen ”claims- maker”, ”socialt problem” och ”moralisk panik”. Den andra frågeställningen har analyserats med lagtext som utgångspunkt. Resultatet har även jämförts med tidigare forskning på området. Viktiga slutsatser har varit att de fångar som är mest isolerade från samhället också löper den största risken att inte bli föremål för återanpassningsinriktade åtgärder. Hög säkerhet och fångars anpassning i samhället kan även sägas stå i ett motsatsförhållande till varandra.

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Johansson, Angelika, and Martina Petersson. "Nätdroger : Moralisk panik eller verklig fara?" Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete (SA), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-27504.

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The aim of the study was to investigate whether the phenomenon of internet drugs should be considered as a moral panic or as a real danger. We have mainly focused on how society perceives young people's use of these drugs. The study is based on a qualitative approach and we have used structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with three different categories of professionals who in different ways have contact with parts of our study in their professional capacity. These are: officials, commentators, and researchers. We chose these respondents to get a chance to see the phenomenon from different perspectives. The study's starting point is moral panic and youth culture. The results and analysis section showed that the professionals had differing opinions on how to consider the phenomenon. The majority of respondents felt that there are elements of both moral panic and real danger; however, there were those who felt it was merely a moral panic, while others felt that it was solely a real danger. With this background, our conclusion is that probably internet drugs should be seen as both - a moral panic and a real danger.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Moral-panic'

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