Moral Panic Analysis

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The construction of social problems, by people or activist, have given rise to a false or exaggerated belief that cultural behavior or cultural groups give way to dangerously stereotyping that poses a threat to normal society. This “moral panic” is directly related to many contemporary issues such as terrorism, politics, and most importantly crime. Over the years “moral panic” has been perceived as threat to societies values or norms. In order for “moral panic” to thrive, it is first created by framers, sociologist or activists who use “moral panic” as means to justify there issues through a presumption of exaggeration and manipulation of statistics. This paper along with three articles, The Social Construction of Serial Homicide, Moral…show more content…
Jenkins, in his article, makes us realize how important is the media as a vessel to transport the issue of serial homicide. The media sometimes along with reporting the information of serial homicides helps glorify the issue. Movies and pop culture help define and realize how big the issues are. “Moral Panic” along with the media and pop culture helps make serial homicide sell more. In other words the sensationalism of serial homicide equals money. In Jenkins article, “…journalistic practices in the 1980s were marked by a growing trend toward sensationalism, and the growth of what has been described as a tabloid approach to news gathering, so that we would expect and acceleration in the spiral of crime reporting” (Jenkins, 1994). These media patterns only show how much the issue of serial homicides is embedded into our pop culture or genre and how there is “no news like bad…show more content…
A “moral panic” starts with an unspeakable tragedy, which sparks an attempt to ascribe blame and responsibility. Framers or activists, fueled with exaggeration of statistics and the strong imagery presented through pop culture and especially the media help define “moral panic”. The most interesting relationship to me that is created by the “moral panic” is the involvement of the media or pop culture. The media in all these articles have a crucial role in escalating the issue as well as pop culture. The movies, literature, and news all have a stake in the phenomenon of serial homicide. Serial homicide gives society the perfect social problem. So there is no need to “candycoat” the issue or make it more palatable in order to sell the issue. In all of these articles, panic/anxiety, strong emotional imagery, case studies and the creation of exaggerated statistics all had a crucial role in framing the “moral panic” issue. Although, “moral panics” often take the form of persecutions of particular groups it is also sometimes can be a positive thing. Just in the case of the creation of the Amber Alert. Before the Amber Alert the US had no real means of a notification system to the general public, where various media outlets in Canada and in the US issued messages, sent out by police, confirming that a child has been
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