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The following study has its origin and context in the politically polarised McCarthy era of the American history. With the WWII in retrospect, politicians in Western nations quickly acknowledged the potential impact and sphere of influence of popular culture and its ability to form public opinion. During this period attempts were made to censor culture from underlying socialist messages in order to spread and awake support for the government, especially in mainstream Hollywood productions. However, how successful were these attempts and did it actually create a resistance against the censorship’s proclaimers? This study analyses four different Hollywood science fiction films from the 1950’s and argues that the underlying messages were more diverse than previously expected. Some of the productions seemed to endorse the McCarthyist values, whereas others more clearly rejected these sets of values, implicitly claiming they were a highly irrational response to an unstable international situation.

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Scare acting has always been the unsung villains of the entertainment industry. For three months of the year, for about five minutes of a haunted house, they get attention. However, the work scare actors do to is way more than just a five second “boo.” Scare actors have been at the beginning of theatre and continue to influence modern entertainment. Even though the patrons may be the ones feeling the danger, scare actors may be even more in danger than them. Each scare actor is unique from their looks to their moves. It might be take a lot of nerve to go into a haunted house, but it takes a lot more to work it.

When the national Democratic Party began to transform to progressive era politics because of the New Deal, conservative reactionaries turned against the social welfare programs and used red scare tactics to discredit liberal and progressive New Deal Democrat professors in higher education. This process continued during the Second World War, when the conservatives in Texas lumped fascism and communism in order to anchor support and fire and threaten professors and administrators for advocating or teaching “subversive doctrine.” In 1948 Texas joined other southern states and followed the Dixiecrat movement designed to return the Democratic Party to its original pro-business and segregationist philosophy. Conservatives who wanted to bolster their Cold Warrior status in Texas also played upon the fears of spreading communism during the Cold War, and passed several repressive laws intended to silence unruly students and entrap professors by claiming they advocated communist doctrine. The fight culminated during the Civil Rights movement, when conservatives in the state attributed subversive or communist behavior to civil rights organizations, and targeted higher education to protect segregated universities. In order to return the national Democratic Party to the pro-business, segregationist philosophy established at the early twentieth century, conservatives used redbaiting tactics to thwart the progressivism in the state’s higher education facilities.

The process of secularization has brought significant changes to the religious landscape in Sweden. The influence of the dominant Lutheran Church has diminished, paving the way for individual belief systems such as Satanism. Secularization has made the mediatization of religion possible, which in turn has anticipated changes in the public representation of religion. Media has played a crucial part in the public representation of Satanism in Sweden, mainly during the 1990s, which created the phenomenon Satanic panic. The Satanic panic spread through media outlets which reported crimes such as church and graveyard vandalisms and connected them to satanists. The panic was in some cases based on actual incidents; however, the cases were often merely rumors. This study examines how Satanism is portrayed in daily press and Religion education textbooks for Upper Secondary school in Sweden. Further, this study analyzes the change in the portrayal in these text types from 1980 to 2020 and investigates whether the secularization process in Sweden has contributed to the potential change. The reason for including textbooks in the study is to compare them to the daily press in order to discover potential differences in their portrayal of the religious movement, which provides a pedagogical aspect as well.

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This study examined the alleged prevalence of Satanism in Zambia, with a particular reference to the Kabwe District during the period 2010-2013. The overall objective was to ascertain the claims and speculations on the alleged prevalence of Satanism in the district of Kabwe. The claims about the alleged prevalence of Satanism and the satanic scare were found by this study to be a reality in Kabwe, with eighty-eight per cent (88%) of the respondents acknowledging the alleged prevalence of the phenomenon. People’s knowledge of Satanism was mainly through rumours, messages from Churches and the electronic media. Studies on rumours (by Stephen Ellis, Gerrie Ter Haar and Jeffrey Victor) have shown that rumours can be investigated in the search for facts, especially rumours that offer plausible explanations for people’s shared anxieties. The above mentioned scholars argue that with efforts at corroboration, such as by interviewing key informants, the researcher can seek credibility on prevailing rumours by verifying or dismissing mere rumours from true stories. The assertions from scholars above justified the use of rumours as a methodological tool in this study. From sources of information the study relied on, claims about the alleged prevalence of Satanism in the district were investigated. The study refuted the satanic claims in a number of cases that were analysed, because they were mostly based on ‘pious legends’ hence lacked objective evidence. From the few incidents that suggested the prevalence of Satanism, there were still two basic problems faced in assessing their credibility: the first being the difficulty in determining the reliability of the confessions from informants who in this case either claimed they were ex-Satanists or served on behalf of Satanists. The second problem consisted in what seemed to be the inconsistency in the explanations of motives behind human killings found in the ritual murders. Some explanations did not suggest satanic motives. One example of refuted claims concerned the two locations within Kabwe district which were highly rumoured to be sites for Satanists, which were found by this study to be Freemasonry Lodges, contrary to what was rumoured.From the findings of this study, it was believed that people joined Satanism either because of the greedy for riches or to avoid poverty. It was also believed that other peoples joined Satanism unconsciously through luring methods used by Satanists. The study also found the satanic scare to have effects on the lives of people in the district. For example, it caused some people to become more committed Christians in their defence against the alleged satanic forces. Because people had associated riches to Satanism, certain individuals avoided getting rich for fear of being labelled ‘Satanists’. / Religious Studies & Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)