FOLK DEVILS, NEWS ICONS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MORAL PANICS

Abstract

In studying media content and effects, scholars sometimes refer to amplifications of deviance and constructions of moral panics. The present article examines how “heroin chic,” a 1990s trend characterized by emaciated, disheveled fashion models and film actors, as well as the symbolic death of music icon Kurt Cobain, interacted with news representations of heroin—namely how the narcotic had reappeared to threaten a new generation of users—thus creating a moral panic. The article posits a role for exemplification theory and news icons in conversations of how moral panics arise and are sustained through mass media. Content analyses of heroin reports in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Washington Post (n=1770) revealed increases in references to popular culture during the middle 1990s, with officials citing dramatic exemplars as evidence of a “new scourge” and of “an old enemy making a dangerous comeback.” Actual heroin use did not appear to increase during 16 years of analysis.