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Lesson 22: Moral Panics and MythmakingFrom Drug Scares to cyber porn, sexting, rainbow parties and sex bracelets

Social ProblemsRobert Wonser

I. Moral Entrepreneurs: Campaigning

Moral Entrepreneurs - Those who construct moral meanings and associate them with particular acts or conditions by drawing on power and resources of: Institutions Agencies Symbols or ideas Communication to audiences

Moral Entrepreneurs: Campaigning

Moral entrepreneurs manufacture public morality through a multi-stage process beginning first with the generation of AWARENESS of a problem Claims-making: danger-messages

are generated about specific issues such as drunken-driving, hate crimes, second-hand smoke, outsourcing, school violence

Moral Entrepreneurs: Campaigning

In this stage will draw upon experts and employ several rhetorical methods including statistics and particular case examples

Moral Entrepreneurs: Campaigning

Second stage involves MORAL CONVERSION or convincing others Claims-makers must draw on elements of

drama, novelty, politics and cultural myths to gain visibility for their issue

They seek to attract media attention through hunger strikes, demonstrations, civil disobedience, marches, and picketing

They seek support of sponsors and opinion leaders—celebrities for public endorsements

Moral Entrepreneurs: Campaigning

If successful such campaigns may foster a MORAL PANIC Temporary but widespread concern about

an issue, promoted by much media attention and sometimes legislative attention, takes center stage

Triggered by specific event at right moment, draw attention to a specific group as a target, have provocative content revealed, and supported by formal and informal communication outlets

Example: Drug Scares and Drug Laws

Several major drug scares, anti-drug crusades involving a moral panic in society Alcohol: Temperance Movement to

Prohibition; primarily led by middle-class, Protestant, white (WASP) Americans reacting to drinking behaviors of Catholic immigrants from Europe

Drug Scares and Drug Laws

Anti-opium den laws of San Francisco in 1875 directed against Chinese immigrants

Anti-marijuana laws of Great Depression directed at Mexican Americans and later connected to drop-out, hippie counterculture that was corrupting morality of the youth

More recently in 1980s the crack cocaine scare, directed against urban, poor Afician Americans.

Toward a Culturally Specific Theory of Drug Scares

Drug scares seem to be occur more frequently in American society: Why?

First, claims about evil of drugs provide a welcome vocabulary of attribution and something to blame for social problems

Toward a Culturally Specific Theory of Drug Scares

Second, American society, predicated on Protestantism and capitalism emphasize self-control; as a result loss of such control is to be avoided at all cost!

Third, we live today in a new consumer culture that exacerbates the issue of self-control; it is this on-going dynamic between self-control and self-indulgence that empowers our drug scares

Status Politics and the Creation of Socia Problems

Deviance creates political competition in which moral entrepreneurs originate moral crusades aimed at generating reform

Such moral crusades are dominated by members of upper social strata of society

The Beginnings of the Moral Panics

Durkin and Bryant (1995) use Ogburn’s concept of“cultural lag” to explain the impact of new technology on sexual activity and attitudes Each new technology offers new

ways of experiencing sexuality Automobile: its mobility provides

opportunities for sexual liaisons

The Beginnings of the Moral Panics

Proliferation of sexually explicit videos following VCRs

Cybersex no exception: new opportunities for virtual sexual activity

Each innovation produces fears and perceptions of danger among some

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Young People and Fears Over Sex; Nothing New

A 1920s New York Times story in which mothers complained about “petting parties”

A 1950s book that warned girls against the “heavy necking” involved in going steady.

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Moral Panics, Claimsmaking, Legends and Social Problems

A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.

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Claimsmakers How do claimsmakers fit in to this picture? Who are they? Why

do they feel strongly about this issue? Kids/teens

May help rationalize their own behavior Parents

Tales of other troubled teens reassures parents their teens are good

School officials Wanting to be ‘on top of things’

Media Sex sells, but so does fearmongering

Advocates It’s what they do

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Rainbow Parties, Sex Bracelets and Sexting

Little evidence to support rainbow parties or sex bracelets, other than hearsay.

Why? Sexting on the other hand is

well-documented, even if wildly overblown.

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Oprah, Diane Sawyer, Joe Scarborough, and Matt Lauer give credence and airtime to segments based on thirdhand accounts of what someone else’s kid or friend was doing. “We’re going to turn now to a disturbing new trend in the news among young girls. Very young girls,” Sawyer said on Good Morning America, in a 2004 segment on the sex bracelets.

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“Children out of control, experimenting with sex before they reach their teens,” Scarborough said on his show the previous year. (He also claimed, “We hear stories every week.”) Best an Bogle point out that one fifth-grade girl named Megan appeared on three different shows after being expelled from Catholic school for selling jelly bracelets. On air, she said banal things like, “I just collect the colors.”

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In fact, Best and Bogle couldn’t find a single instance, reading through TV transcripts, of an interview with a student or parent or school official who identified a real rainbow party or sex conspiracy linked to the bracelets. To make the leap, the shows traded in insinuation. During her GMA appearance, Megan mentioned sixth graders French kissing, and Sawyer jumped in with “So they were starting with the French kiss in her school.”

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% of males and females ages 15-19who report having had sexual intercourse,

1998 - 2010

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The Reality? From 1988 to 2010, they report, the percentage

of sexually active girls, ages 15 to 19, dropped from 51 percent to 43 percent; the rate for boys fell from 60 percent to 42 percent.

In 2011, only 6.2 percent of kids reported having sex for the first time before age 13, down from 10.2 percent 20 years earlier.

Kids today don’t have more sexual partners than their parents did, on average—they have slightly fewer.