Editing Moral panic (section)

== <span class="anchor" id="Criticism"></span> Criticism of moral panic as an explanation ==
Paul Joosse has argued that while classic moral panic theory styled itself as being part of the "sceptical revolution" that sought to critique [[structural functionalism]], it is actually very similar to [[Émile Durkheim]]'s depiction of how the [[collective conscience]] is strengthened through its reactions to [[Deviance (sociology)|deviance]] (in Cohen's case, for example, "right-thinkers" use folk devils to strengthen societal orthodoxies). In his analysis of [[Donald Trump]]'s victory in the [[2016 United States presidential election]], Joosse reimagined moral panic in [[Max Weber|Weberian]] terms, showing how charismatic moral entrepreneurs can at once deride folk devils in the traditional sense while avoiding the conservative moral recapitulation that classic moral panic theory predicts.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1093/bjc/azx047 |title=Expanding Moral Panic Theory to Include the Agency of Charismatic Entrepreneurs |journal=British Journal of Criminology |volume=58 |issue=4 |pages=993–1012 |last1=Joosse |first1=Paul |year=2017|url=https://osf.io/6xmtv/download |doi-access=free }}</ref> Another criticism is that of disproportionality: there is no way to measure what a proportionate reaction should be to a specific action.{{sfn|Cohen|2011|pp=xxvi–xxxi}}

Writing in 1995 about the moral panic that arose in the UK after a series of murders by juveniles, chiefly that of two-year-old [[Murder of James Bulger|James Bulger]] by two 10-year-old boys but also including that of 70-year-old [[Murder of Edna Phillips|Edna Phillips]] by two 17-year-old girls, the sociologist [[Colin Hay (political scientist)|Colin Hay]] pointed out that the folk devil was ambiguous in such cases; the child perpetrators would normally be thought of as innocent.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Colin |last=Hay |author-link=Colin Hay (political scientist) |title=Mobilization Through Interpellation: James Bulger, Juvenile Crime and the Construction of a Moral Panic |journal=Social & Legal Studies |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=197–223 |year=1995 |doi=10.1177/096466399500400203 |s2cid=143468698 }} Cited in {{Cite book |first=Alan |last=Hunt |contribution=Fractious Rivals? Moral Panics and Moral Regulation |title=Moral Panic and the Politics of Anxiety |editor-first=Sean Patrick |editor-last=Hier |location=London |publisher=Routledge |year=2011 |isbn=978-0415555555 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HLyTgaErBZ8C&pg=PA58 |page=58 }}</ref>

In 1995, [[Angela McRobbie]] and [[Sarah Thornton]] argued "that it is now time that every stage in the process of constructing a moral panic, as well as the social relations which support it, should be revised". Their argument is that mass media has changed since the concept of moral panic emerged so "that 'folk devils' are less marginalized than they once were", and that "folk devils" are not only castigated by mass media but supported and defended by it as well. They also suggest that the "points of social control" that moral panics used to rest on "have undergone some degree of shift, if not transformation".<ref>{{Citation | last1 = McRobbie | first1 = Angela | last2 = Thornton | first2 = Sarah L. | author-link1 = Angela McRobbie | author-link2 = Sarah Thornton | contribution = Rethinking 'moral panic' for multi-mediated social worlds | editor-last = McRobbie | editor-first = Angela | editor-link = Angela McRobbie | title = Feminism and youth culture | publisher = Macmillan Press | pages = 180–197 | location = Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire | year = 2000 | orig-year = 1991 | edition = 2nd | isbn = 978-0333770320 }}. Also available as: {{Cite journal |doi=10.2307/591571 |jstor=591571 |title=Rethinking 'Moral Panic' for Multi-Mediated Social Worlds |journal=The British Journal of Sociology |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=559 |year=1995 |last1=McRobbie |first1=Angela |last2=Thornton |first2=Sarah L. }}</ref>

British criminologist Yvonne Jewkes (2004) has also raised issue with the term ''morality'', how it is accepted unproblematically in the concept of "moral panic" and how most research into moral panics fails to approach the term critically but instead accepts it at face value.<ref name = Jewkes1>{{citation | last = Jewkes | first = Yvonne | contribution = Media and moral panics | editor-last = Jewkes | editor-first = Yvonne | title = Media & Crime | publisher = Sage | pages = [https://archive.org/details/mediacrime0000jewk/page/76 76–77] | location = London & Thousand Oaks, California | year = 2011 | orig-year = 2004 | edition = 2nd | isbn = 978-1848607033 | url = https://archive.org/details/mediacrime0000jewk/page/76 }}</ref> Jewkes goes on to argue that the thesis and the way it has been used fails to distinguish between crimes that quite rightly offend human morality, and thus elicit a justifiable reaction, and those that demonise minorities. The public are not sufficiently gullible to keep accepting the latter and consequently allow themselves to be manipulated by the media and the government.<ref name="Jewkes1"/>

Another British criminologist, Steve Hall (2012), goes a step further to suggest that the term ''moral panic'' is a fundamental category error. Hall argues that although some crimes are sensationalized by the media, in the general structure of the crime/control narrative the ability of the existing state and criminal justice system to protect the public is also overstated. Public concern is whipped up only for the purpose of being soothed, which produces not panic but the opposite, comfort and complacency.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hall |first=S. |year=2012 |title=Theorizing Crime and Deviance: A New Perspective |location=London |publisher=Sage |pages=132–139 |isbn=978-1-84860-672-2 }}</ref>

Echoing another point Hall makes, sociologists Thompson and Williams (2013) argue that the concept of "moral panic" is not a rational response to the phenomenon of social reaction, but itself a product of the irrational middle-class fear of the imagined working-class "mob". Using as an example a peaceful and lawful protest staged by local mothers against the re-housing of sex-offenders on their estate, Thompson and Williams argue that the sensationalist demonization of the protesters by moral panic theorists and the liberal press was just as irrational as the demonization of the sex offenders by the protesters and the tabloid press.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=W. |last2=Williams |first2=A. |year=2013 |title=The Myth of Moral Panics: Sex, Snuff, and Satan |series=Routledge Advances in Criminology |location=London |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0415812665 }} {{page needed|date=November 2016}}</ref>

Many sociologists and criminologists (Ungar, Hier, Rohloff)<ref>{{Cite book |title=Moral panic and the politics of anxiety |date=2011 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-55555-5 |editor-last=Hier |editor-first=Sean P. |location=New York}}</ref> have revised Cohen's original framework. The revisions are compatible with the way in which Cohen theorizes panics in the third ''Introduction to Folk Devils and Moral Panics''.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01377.x |pmid=21899526 |title=Tightening the focus: Moral panic, moral regulation and liberal government |journal=The British Journal of Sociology |volume=62 |issue=3 |pages=523–541 |year=2011 |last1=Hier |first1=Sean P. }}</ref>