On the 14th March 2013 the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) held a hearing to consider an application by Top TV and their parent company ODM to broadcast three adult-content channels. This application and hearing have again brought the debate surrounding pornography to the fore in South Africa. While research in the field of pornography studies has historically been centred around whether pornography is harmful to women specifically and society in general, the current research aims to move away from this framework and examine issues of subjectivity, discourse, and power within the debate. This will be achieved through the use of moral panic theory, and Foucauldian critical discourse analysis (FCDA) to analyse the transcript of the hearing held at ICASA as well as newspaper reports regarding the hearing and its outcome

This research seeks to examine the definition and the phenomenon of the “post 80s generation” in Hong Kong and the extent to which the post 80s generation constituted a moral panic. It also seeks to explore the role of media in the construction of the same moral panic. Cohen (1972) developed the concept of moral panic in order to examine some social phenomena, which created a threat to society. Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) identified five elements to examine moral panic including (1) concern, (2) hostility, (3) consensus, (4) disproportionality and (5) volatility. Based on the textual analysis on 3,854 news reports on two local newspapers within the period 2009--2012 as well as 12 in-depth interviews with the youth and journalists, this research attempted to identify the meaning of the term “the post 80s generation” from the perspectives of the mass media and the interviewees. Our findings indicated that the post 80s generation seemed not to constitute a moral panic in terms of the elements mentioned above. The post 80s generation in fact had both positive and negative sides. Rather than serving as agent in producing moral panic, mass media, including social media, projected multiple images of the post 80s generation. Our study also identified a “sense of local consciousness” among the post 80s generation which merits further study. / published_or_final_version / Criminology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Denna uppsats behandlar SVT:s Uppdrag granskning. Vi var intresserade av att titta närmare på detta program eftersom det har en särställning i Sverige som ett av de mest sedda samhällsprogrammen. Vi frågade oss vilken agendasättande roll Uppdrag granskning har i vårt samhälle och hur deras reportage utformas för att få genomslag och nå ut till publiken. Utnyttjar Uppdrag granskning sin särställning på bästa sätt för att informera och upplysa? Våra teorier har alltså mycket att göra med mediers agendasättande funktion. Vi har även tittat på angränsande teorier om ”moral panics”, och lutar oss samtidigt till viss del mot utvalda delar av nyhetsvärderingsteori. Vi har genomfört en kritisk diskursanalys (CDA) av två reportage av Uppdrag granskning. Det ena har fått stort genomslag i svensk tryckt press, medan det andra knappt har omnämnts. Vi ville studera hur redaktionen har arbetat för att utforma reportagen och påverka deras genomslag. Därför har vi tittat på bland annat användningen av dramaturgi och diskurs, samt hur avsnitten gestaltas för att tala till tittarna. För att komplettera vår undersökning har vi även tittat på vilket genomslag reportagen har fått i form av uppmärksamhet i svensk tryckt press. Vi har sedan sökt en förklaring av detta genomslag med hjälp av våra fynd från diskursanalysen samt parametrarna för nyhetsvärdering. När vi började vår analys upptäckte vi snabbt vissa skillnader mellan reportagen. Den tydligaste var att det reportage som fick störst genomslag också berörde ett ämne som var aktuellt och som är lätt att ta ställning till. Det förekom också tydliga symboler och metaforer som lätt kunde användas av andra medier för att skapa rubriker. Vi lade märke till att personer identifierades på olika sätt till följd av bland annat när och hur länge de förekom i reportaget samt hur reportrarna förhöll sig till dem. De ställde ledande frågor som resulterade i att vissa personer identifierades på ett sätt som tydligt passade in i en dramaturgisk modell: de goda och de onda. För att få genomslag i medierna framstår det som viktigt att en syndabock pekas ut, och gärna att denna är en enskild person, samt att reportaget innehåller tydliga symboler och metaforer och att konsumenten känner igen ämnet.

The purpose of this dissertation was to analyze perceptions of terrorism through the analysis of two newspapers’ news coverage of terrorism after the September 11 attacks, a popular Kentucky newspaper, the Courier-Journal and the New York Times (NYT). The social construction of terrorism was reflected as a problem through moral panics or something that a society believed as wrong that needed to be eradicated. Previous research had found that newspapers have contributed to moral panics by exaggerating the scope of social problems such as school shootings. I used the theoretical framework of moral panics; Goode and Ben-Yehuda’s (2009) two criteria of moral panics, which were (1) concern and (2) volatility; portrayals of heroes, folk devils, and victims in moral panics; and war on terror as sensitizing concepts to find themes. I analyzed 500 the CJ newspaper articles and 500 the NYT articles from September 11, 2001 to August 30, 2018 to find the differences between both newspapers, identify portrayals, and determine how terrorism was socially constructed. Overall, I found differences between the two newspapers on how they depicted terrorism and themes on how both newspapers reported and described terrorism. The reporting on terrorism has implications to the overall handling of terrorism such as the Muslim Travel Ban.

My thesis looks at the creation of moral panics surrounding childhood, sexuality, and media proliferation of “stranger danger,” in American culture. I have chosen to analyze the television program “To Catch a Predator” to illustrate the ways in which these “stranger danger” narratives are related to childhood sexual moral panics and how these two phenomena work to encourage viewership and consumerism in American culture. The exacerbation of “predator” moral panics in reality television maintains the fear of invasion of secure suburban space largely due to the portrayal of African American men as threatening and/or violent within “To Catch a Predator’s” narrative.

This thesis presents a study of the debate on drugs in the Swedish press from 1970 to 1999. Applying a social constructionist and critical discourse perspective, it aims to map out and analyze the discourse on drugs in a large number of Swedish newspapers. The main focus is on debate articles and editorials. The research questions are concerned with (1) how the drug problem has been articulated, and with (2) what the represen¬ta-tion¬al patterns found say about Swedish society, its social relations and social history on a higher level of abstraction. The practical analysis is oriented towards discerning (a) major themes, standpoints and controversies, (b) major views on people using drugs, and (c) major ideas about what should be done and how, within the drug discourse of Swedish media during three decades. Parts of the analyses are also devoted to finding out which actors have been influential in the debate on drugs, and what type of rhetoric has been employed. Results are presented in three chapters: one about the 1970s, one about the 1980s, and one about the 1990s. The drug problem is formulated, already during the 1970s, as a pressing and urgent problem in Swedish society. During the course of the two following decades, this fact is underlined more and more – even though an increasing amount of voices critical to this perspectives are raised towards the end of the 1990s. The threat is articulated during the 1970s as stemming from a faulty political system driving certain groups of people into helplessness drug abuse. During the 1980s and 1990s, however, impending liberalization of attitudes and legislation was increasingly constructed as the most imminent danger. The drug user was represented as a victim of social injustices during the seventies, but to an increasing extent – during the eighties and nineties – as belonging to certain youth groups who were perceived to be at risk of becoming drug abusers. When it comes to the measures prescribed, a steady development in the direction of increased repressiveness and tougher attitudes towards drugs and their users, is to be found over the course of the time period under study. The concluding discussion illustrates that the discourse on drugs is related to a number of other discourses to which it relates at various times, with various effects (a discourse of social critique, a legal discourse, a moral discourse, a discourse on youth and popular culture, and a discourse of Swedishness). The identified tendencies and discursive patterns are discussed in relation to the unique history of the temperance movement in Sweden, and analyzed with the help of John B. Thompson’s theory of media and ideology, Stanley Cohen’s theory on “folk devils and moral panics” and Kai T. Erikson’s idea about “boundary crises”. The main conclusion is that the drug debate is a vehicle through which such far reaching issues as those of morality, law and politics, national identity, the upbringing of youth and the future can be channeled.

Thesis (M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. / Adviser: Liesbet Hooghe. Includes bibliographical references.

The central aim of this study is to examine processes of identity formation among white, working-class youths in a marginalized area located on the outskirts of South London. It is primarily based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork but also on analyses of web sites, newspapers and popular culture. The study contributes to research on ‘chavs’, and on youth (sub)cultures and social class. Identity is conceived as constructed through the dialectical interplay between ‘external’ processes of social categorization and ‘internal’ processes of identification and boundary work. The context of the study is the recent moral panic in Britain over ‘chavs’. In public discourse, the term chav emerged as a way of pathologizing white working-class youths adopting specific visual markers of taste. The study shows that most respondents, and the area in general, were positioned in the stigmatizing discourse on chavs, and the spaces and places that they are associated with. When interpreting the meaning of chav, the respondents drew strong boundaries against the term, and used it to categorize others. In contrast to earlier research, the notion of chav is not related to a subcultural style adopted by socially excluded groups of youths, but primarily a form of categorization serving to pathologize important aspects of the working-class culture in the area. The findings support the contention that spatiality plays an essential role in the formation of classed identities. In light of the stigmatizing perceptions of the area, the study explores the often ambiguous ways in which the respondents negotiated their sense of belonging, community and safety. Moreover, in relation to taste and masculinity, the study demonstrates how the construction and performance of classed identifications and distinctions, and thus symbolic class hierarchies, are related to the spatial context.

For the past 50 years, various moral panics have emerged in response to concerns about children and teens. In particular, interest in entertainment appealing to youth has been the focus of social and legislative changes aimed at protecting youth from increased sexual and violent content associated with comic books, music lyrics, Internet content, and film and television. The intent of this study is to compare the emergence and progression of moral panics related to entertainment appealing to youth, such as comic books, music lyrics, the Internet, and film and television, since 1938 to 2010 to better understand the ways we construct youth in the context of moral panics. Cohen's 1972 model of the progression of moral panics was used to compare reactions to entertainment appealing to youth over a 50-year period of time to determine if they followed similar patterns. Cohen's 1972 model was also used to examine the various ways youth is constructed during moral panics. The model clearly exemplifies that reactions to the entertainment genres examined in the study do follow Cohen's (1972) pattern. Whereas the comic book and music lyrics were easier to track, technology complicated tracking of responses when examining reactions to Internet and film and television. Conclusions are drawn that how youth is constructed in the context of moral panics is closely related to how adulthood and parenthood is constructed. When parenting habits come under scrutiny, it appears that youth are viewed with suspicion as delinquents; on the other hand, when outside issues or events are targeted as problematic, youth are viewed as in need of protection. Thus, the construction of youth in the context of moral panics appears to be as focused on parenthood as it is on childhood or adolescence.

A feminist content analysis of writings and speeches of two main political figures of the Islamic government of Iran, Khomeini and Ahmadinejad, demonstrates the centrality of discourses around gender in their use of anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and nationalist narratives. Essentialist beliefs about gender and the symbolic meaning of gender as social order and the "natural law of the universe" are the notions embedded in Khoemini and Ahmadinejad's narratives to suggest that changes in traditional gender relations are a threat to the order of the society. This study of dominance also reveals how the dominant culture produced by the Islamic state grasps on to the cultural elements of hegemonic discourse to bond coercion with legitimacy. Creating moral panics around changes in traditional gender relations and traditional definitions of femininity and masculinity is the main character of political speeches around women's issues and women's rights of these two figures. According to these narratives, femininity and gender "ideals" such as chastity, devotional motherhood, and women's role in maintaining the basis of the structure of the family are pivotal to the protection of the nation, its independence and its future.