| Moral panic is an interesting social phenomenon that can have tragic results. The term is used todescribe a state of panic induced in a large group of people, who feel that a societal norm or an aspect governing the safety of people is being seriously threatened. The term is the creation of sociologist Stanley Cohen, who examined the way that Mods and Rock and Roll fans were perceived as a threat to society in the 1960s and early 1970s. Moral panic clearly existed prior to Cohen creating the term. Virtually every dance style introduced in the 20th century created such panic; even the waltz was condemned much earlier as a sure path to sin because the couples embraced each other. Most new music styles, and the fans of such styles, have induced — at least in small scale — moral panic. From ministers condemning the evils of rock and roll to significant news coverage of the hippie culture and from Kurt Cobain’s death to the Goth movement, people may become significantly afraid that a corruptible influence is likely to cause harm to their children and their way of life. These concerns are often inflated by excessive coverage in the media of a few events that would indicate all children who picked up a Nirvana album would commit suicide, or all children who donned black eye shadow would decide to worship vampires. Moral panics often result over activities which, before their suggested link to juvenile delinquency, have received little or no media coverage. They become a part of youth culture, freely adopted by a community willing to try new things. The new form of entertainment remains foreign to the older generation, who was brought up without it. It is this older generation who panics and who also controls the news media. If youth culture was represented from a youth perspective in day-to-day journalistic media, moral panics might not be so apt to occur. (Excerpt from the following- http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-moral-panic.htm) The media plays a vital role in creating this moral panic. It tends to isolate and sensationalize certain events, groups and behaviours, creating links between them and negative moral standings that then pose to threaten the very fabric of society and normalcy. This ultimately creates a moral panic within the public. One such example can be seen in the moral panic around youth and video gaming culture. In our contemporary world video games are blamed for youth violence, much like comic books were previously accused of causing youth aggression and crime. "Comic books had been seen as a waste of children's time. The appearance of crime comics in an industry a decade old contributed to the suggestion that comics could be linked to juvenile delinquency." To outsiders gaming appeared to highlight crime, horror, monsters, and killing which threatened social values. One of the most notable cases around video games and the creation of a moral panic can be seen in the reportings and events after the tragic Columbine Shootings. "On April 20th, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, went on a shooting rampage, armed with shotguns, assault rifles, grenades, and pipe bombs. After killing twelve students and a teacher, Klebold and Harris turned their weapons on themselves, leaving the nation with no answers to their many questions. What could have caused two adolescents to do so much harm? The media's answer: video games." (http://www.gamebits.net/other/mqp/#30) The media portrayed a natural cause-and-effect scenario involving youth and video games, similar to a natural disaster or a disease. Lt. Colonel Grossman, in his book Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill, described the effect video games have on kids as "Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome", or AVIDS. The media supported this theory and omitted facts about Harris and Klebold which may have suggested a predisposition to violence. Instead quotes were seen like this one in the Denver Post,April,2001 stating this of video gaming, "It is guaranteed that more monsters will be created and more school killings will occur" After Columbine, President Clinton requested a report from the Surgeon General on the effects of media violence on children. When the press received word in January 2001 that the report was nearly finished, The Charlotte Observer (19 Jan. 2001) ran a story with the headline "Surgeon General to Declare Violent Media Harmful to Children". The article goes on to say the report would fuel the side of politicians and parent groups pushing for legislation against video games, calling them as much a health hazard as cigarettes. The Los Angeles Times predicted the report would find that "repeated exposure to violent entertainment during early childhood causes more aggressive behavior throughout the child's life." The actual report, released a few days later, was contradictory to these advance news reports. According to the report, media violence plays only a minor role in the violence of pre-adolescents, and almost no role in older children. The report ranked video games as the tenth most significant risk factor, placing poor upbringing and violent parents, poverty, substance abuse, and natural aggressive tendencies as more likely factors. Though the results of the report were often predicted in the media, the actual results were omitted from wide coverage. "The representation of video games in both the media and, consequently, in the minds of concerned parents fits all the characteristics of a moral panic, as defined by Cohen and other authors. Facts about youth culture have been omitted and exaggerated and the situation has been likened to a natural disaster. Other explanations of how youth culture affects children have been ignored, as have the questions of if the entertainment form affect children at all, or if children affect and use their culture to suit their own needs and desires. The panic preceded any actual research or evidence to either confirm or deny society's fears about what youth culture was doing to the youth. What society didn't need evidence for was to know that the activity in which their children were engaging symbolized something their parents found threatening and frightening."
Links of interest: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html |
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