‘Tough on Crime’ – focusing on the PSYCHOLOGY of it (FEAR)
Psychology: the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context (dictionary.com)
- Societal Elites manipulate public fear
- MORAL PANIC- ‘a situation in which public fears and state interventions greatly exceed the objective threat posed to society by a particular individual or group who is/are claimed to be responsible for creating the threat in the first place.’
- Stanley Cohen created the concept in England 1960s in response to threats posed by youth groups
- However this implementation of fear provides benefits towards the media, politicians and law enforcement authorities
- Moral Panic formed through distortion of mass media campaigns
- Campaigns often based on race, ethnicity and social class through the reinforcement of stereotypes
MORAL PANIC CONVENTIONS:
- Focus on Attention of Behavior – strip favorable characteristics and replace with negative ones.
- Gap between Concern and Threat – objectively threat is less threatening than the image provided
- Level of Concern Fluctuates- discover threat, rise in public concern, abrupt subside
- This public Hysteria then forces the public to address and vote the legislation to justify agendas of those in power
- Public and Political response to a distorted conception
- An ‘allegedly harmful individual or group’
- Can be an exaggeration – number of individuals involved, level of violence, amount of damage caused.
SOCIAL ACTORS INVOLVED:
- The accused threat (group or individuals)
- Rule or Law enforces
- The Media (JOURNALISTIC HYPERBOLE)
- Politicians
- The Public
- PRIMING- ‘pays attention to the troublesome issue at hand and brings about old information from this issue, bringing back old memories from that issue’
- Triggers the Publics pre-existent beliefs, attitudes and prejudices from the issue
- Law enforcers and Politicians have a sworn identity to protect the public
- President Ronald Regan U.S. war on drugs 1980s
- The Public is the central actors within the concept of Moral Panic
- Politicians + Law Enforces + Media = Moral Panic outcry from the Public
- (1) Cohen, S. 1972. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. London: MacGibbon and Key Ltd.
- (2) Tuchman, G. 1978. Making News: A Study in the Social Construction of Reality. New York: The Free Pres
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201706/how-the-news-media-make-monsters
- Massive Media exposure labels the evil
- Social construction of evil and public monsters
- Typically stylized and exaggerated
- Journalistic Hyperbole
- Public concern and Anxiety is heightened
- Scaring the Public through Advertising
- Jeffery Dahmer as the ‘Milwaukee Cannibal’
- ‘Jeffery Dahmer: Man or Monster?’
- Shortly after Dahmer’s capture, the front cover of People magazine published on August 12, 1991 read: Horror in Milwaukee: He was a quiet man who worked in a chocolate factory. But at an apartment 213 a real-life “Silence of the Lambs” was unfolding. Now that Jeffrey Dahmer has confessed to 17 grotesque murders, his troubling history of alcoholism, sex offenses and bizarre behavior raises a haunting question: Why wasn’t he stopped?
- Comparison between fictional evil characters and focusing on the most evil aspect eg. Dahmer it was cannibalism
- Ideas of dehumanization
- Refer to evils in supernatural terms eg. Monster, alien
- Blur the distinction between reality and fiction
- Exaggerated Journalistic Rhetoric
https://www.artinstitutes.edu/about/blog/the-four-letter-word-in-advertising-fear
- Fear appears to strike a nerve with audiences, it provides scare tactics that are stunningly effective
- Fear is an effective advertising technique as it’s a sensation that escalates instantaneously through the individuals response
- Sometimes a fear advert makes it’s audience stop and think, in the long run it causes frustration
- Fear appeals when it alerts or gathers awareness towards the public
- Ethical questions can emerge when the advert at hand is too graphic and employs excessive amounts of fear tactics