Sociology 15: Moral Panic/Price 6 (Awoling)
Assignment: 7 Points Possible
Instructions: Thoroughly respond to the following questions.
The best responses are those that include detail, analysis, examples & explanations!
1) What is moral panic? What is the function of moral panic? How are moral panics spread? And discussion solutions to moral panics?
Moral Panic is explained by Cohen (1972) as “To describe a collective response, generated by unsettling social strain and incited and spread by interest groups, toward person who are actively transformed into “folk devil’ and then treated as threats to dominant social interests and values.”
It’s function serves a distinct stabilizing function at a time of unsettling social strain.
Moral panic spreads like wild fire especially when the media becomes involved. The constant media coverage and speculation of what could be or might be becomes imbedded into the viewer’s minds to the point that the viewers themselves start to wonder about and ask questions about their child care providers. In addition, according to the article, “The role of interest, professional and grass-roots groups in sustaining both the drama and exigency of this moral panic, however, cannot be underestimated.”
Parents of the alleged victims also played a huge role as a “grass-group” and were major contributors to the spread of the satanic day car moral panic.
Some solutions to moral panic would be to hold media/news agencies liable for reporting allegations that are not true or they have no facts or evidence to back up the claims. In addition, the claim makers themselves must be dealt with, if it is proven that the claim makers were the trigger or spark of a moral panic, they must have the evidence to support it. However in this articles example of the triggers, the social workers elicited over repeated and suggestive interviews of the children are unethical and they should have been reprimanded if not fired for creating such a...