Panic Now!

Barry Glassner’s (1999) The Culture of Fear

• Formerly a professor of Sociology at University of Southern California

• Author of a number of articles and books on the culture of fear phenomenon

Frank Furedi’s (2006) Culture of Fear Revisited

• Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, UK

• Author of author of Politics of Fear, Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?, Therapy Culture, Paranoid Parenting and Culture of Fear.

The Social Construction of Reality

• Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, 1966

• Knowledge is derived from and maintained by social interaction

• The meanings of anything are the product of human interpretations and are not in nature

• Our understandings of the world are produced by us, are socially constructed

Moral Panics

• Stanley Cohen (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and the Rockers

• A study of subculture and the media’s role in defining social problems for the public

Cohen’s Case Study

• conflict between Mods and Rockers, in Clacton on Easter Sunday, 1964

• two groups fought resulting in some vandalism and property damange

• In the end, 97 arrested

Conclusions

• the media's coverage of the episode was subject to exaggeration and distortion of the facts, giving the impression the event was more violent than it actually was

The Media’s Role

• An 'amplification' takes place through the media

• It appeals to the public so that they concur with ready-made opinions about the course of action to be taken

Moral Panics

• Moral Panic, defined: “A condition, episode,person or group ofpersons emerges tobecome defined as athreat to societal valuesand interests”

Social Control

Moral panics function to support and legitimize particular kinds of social control through:

1) Identifying a “social problem”;

2) Simplifying its cause;3) Stigmatizing those involved;4) Stirring up public

indignation or concern.

Goode and Ben Yehuda (1994)Moral Panics:

The Social Construction of Deviance

• 1. Concern• 2. Hostility• 3. Consensus• 4. Disproportionality• 5. Volatility

Glassner’s (1999) “Social Construction of Fear”

• “Fear is constructed through efforts to protect against it.”

• “Neither the things that people do to protect themselves individually or collectively, nor what they are protecting themselves from, necessarily reveal their true fears.”

Misdirection

• Like a magician’s sleight of hand to execute a magic trick, media work to focus our attention away from real risks and struggles

• We are afraid of the wrong things because these are the things on the media agenda

Erving Goffman (1974) Framing Theory

• The ways that stories are framed influences the meaning they will have

• Definitions of a situation are constructed in accordance with principles of organization which govern events and our subjective involvement in them

Frames Defined

• Frames are cognitive structures which guide perception and representations of reality

• They structure which parts of reality get noticed

• They are not necessarily consciously manufactured and are often unconsciously adopted

Todd Gitlin’s (1980) definition

• “Frames are principles of selection, emphasis and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters.”

• In sort, frames structure our attention

Media Effects

• What effects does our consumption of media have on our understandings of the world?

Cultivation Theory – George Gerbner

• TV viewing has quantitatively observable effects on the perceptual worlds of audiences

• Watching violence on TV creates an exaggerated belief that the world is violent or, in his words, “mean and scary”

The Hypodermic Model

• Also known as the “Magic Bullet theory”

• The passive audience is injected with ideas about the world by media

Agenda Setting Theory McComb and Shaw

• The agenda of the media and the public agenda are closely matched

• The media’s agenda setting function means that there is a high correlation between media and the public ordering of priorities

• People are more likely to attribute importance to and event, issue, or idea because of media exposure

Risk Society – Ulrich Beck

• Risk is a product of knowledges produced by people, generally experts in a variety of scientific disciplines and actuaries

• Risk as what has not-yet happened but is probable or predicted

• The perception of risk has changed as a result of science and the unboundedness of time and space

Moral Panics Vs ....

• Risk found in people• Risks are time limited and

infinitely substitutable• Risks lead to scapegoating• Risks are created by media• Moral outrage is the

outcome• Moral panics can create a

culture of fear

...Vs Risk Society• Risk found in our

environments• Risks are not bound to space

and time • Risks are defined not for

purposes of blame but for purposes of increased control

• Risks are created by science and knowledge

• Moral imperatives to risk aversion are the outcome

• Risk knowledges can create a culture of fear

Glassner “Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things”

Glassner’s examples:• Health scares• Killer kids• Crime• Others?• http://www.youtube.co

m/watch?v=cYApo2d8o_A

Why we are afraid:

• Premillennial tensions

• The news media

• Alarmism

• Psychological projection of personal, moral, etc. insecurities

Why do we panic?

• The dominance of an ethos of risk-aversion

• Overreaction• Disproportionality• Others?

• What gets defined as a panic and what not depends on who is doing the defining.

• Political agendas and selectivity

• Pedagogies of fear

Technical explanations:

• Media amplification or attenuation of risk

• Most people get information by way of media

• Fear sells

Social explanations:

• Change is experienced as risk

• Concern about the future• Impossibility of knowing• Diminished humanity• Reconciling limits • All collect under the

umbrella of the last theme: Diminished sense of control

Workshop: Critical Reading

• Who?• What?• When? • Where?• Why?• How?

• Where did it come from? Who wrote it? When?• Who is it written for? • What does it say? What is its topic? Thesis?

What evidence does it provide to support its argument? What examples does it use?

• How is the argument organized? • Is there a bias? Of what it is trying to persuade

you?