What Are Moral Panics? Hayley Burns

1. "The media, wittingly or unwittingly, reproduce the definitions of the powerful." [Eldridge 1997: 65]
2. The mass media appeals to the public at large, especially people who are part of the politics - they're in position of power, which enables them to tempt society into believing what they want them to believe. 
3. Stanley Cohen founded the term 'moral panics' in his work Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972). Cohen states defines moral panic as 'a condition, episode, person or group of persons (who) become defined as a threat to societal values and interests'. He continues to describe how the mass media stylises these episodes, and amplifies the facts, resulting into a national issue, when the situation could have been sustained on a local level. 
4. Throughout each era, Cohen noticed that groups of youth culture were associated with 'violence', which provoked reaction and emotion from the public. The Mods and Rockers were portrayed as threat to law, taking 'control' over the 'culture'. This refers to the media manipulating the event and calling for a punishment to be set to victimise the offenders. In alternative terms, society cannot accept responsibility for its own failures and so they seek to find someone who can be accused. 
5. The amplification that takes place through the media's work acts to appeal to the public so that they approve of the ready-made opinions by bishops, politicians and editors (also known as the moral barricade).
6. Cohen's criticism on the conflict of the Mods and Rockers in Clacton on Easter Sunday, 1964, was the exaggeration of the subject and manipulation of the facts. Phrases, such as orgy, riot, siege and screaming mob, were interpreted into the text, which resulted in the event being perceived as a much more violent affair than the facts support. 
7. Cohen's control culture failed to deal with the issue presented to the public, which is why the topic of youth culture carries on to reappear at various points in our society.