Mass Media Panic: The 1980s and 1990s

Abstract

During a ‘moral panic’, the suspect category is either created or, more often, argue Goode and Ben-Yehuda, relocated, dusted off and attacked with a renewed vigour. New charges may be made, old ones dredged up and reformulated. In many cases a deviant category or stereotype already exists, but is latent and only activated at times of crisis or panic because secondary targets are needed to deflect attention away from some of society’s most pressing or insoluble problems. Since the reasons for scapegoating them vary according to historical circumstances, deviant categories are often refurbished over time. Violent crime or action movies reproduced on video are a case in point.1