Panic at the Port

Abstract

Media treatment of the Port Arthur massacre fits comfortably into Cohen's (1973) general schema of moral panic but, as the perpetrator's motivation was probed in the inventory and reaction stages, some thematic elements of that panic were stretched (such as gun availability and video violence) while others were cut short (the perpetrator's personal development and racism). Delineating the context of these editorial decisions reveals a shift in the function of moral panic from the socially constructed media event chronicled by Cohen to the hegemonically deployed media instrument symptomatic of the contemporary media environment. Nevertheless the simultaneous shift in the site of moral panic deconstruction from class-based sociology to audience-based media theory suggests trajectories for the subversive use of moral panic. Thus the article per se begins: On Sunday 28 April 1996, Martin Bryant murdered 35 people at Port Arthur, Tasmania and in surrounding districts.