11. Moral Framing Networks: How Moral Entrepreneurs Create Power through the Media

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors utilize contemporary sociological theory and examples found on the internet to explain how and why moral entrepreneurs deliver and spread erroneous information through mass media to create moral panics. The authors examine what is referred to as the “Latino cyber-moral panic” in the United States, in which immigrants are criminalized in cyberspace and targeted as the “folk devils.” The authors find that moral entrepreneurs use vertical and horizontal mass communication networks to recruit and maintain the membership of moral framing networks. Moral framing networks are particular sectors of the public sphere that share the same moral values as the moral entrepreneur. The moral entrepreneurs utilize the manipulation and the distortion of information, which is distributed in the form of simple messages and/or circular reporting via cyberspace. Moral framing networks can be generalizable, as they can take different forms and functions. Moral entrepreneurs create, increase, or lose power through the manipulation of a moral framing network.