The Media

Question 1

What group focus on the media?

Answer 1

Interactionists

Question 2

Who discussed folk devils and moral panics?

Answer 2

Cohen

Question 3

What did Cohen find when studying the media coverage?

Answer 3

• When examining media coverage of the mods and rocket clashes in 60s, he argued the media coverage was out of proportion to the incidents themselves.
• He interview magistrates, police officers and the mods and rockers themself and studied the media coverage, and found very different views of the same event.
• The media had turned mods and rockers into folk devils.

Question 4

Who looked at the meanings attached to interactions by police and hippies?

Answer 4

Young

Question 5

What did Young find?

Answer 5

• The police saw hippies are dirty ‘pot heads’
• The results was that drug taking started to become a large part of the hippy identity. (self-fulfilling prophecy)
• The police actions led the hippies to form a more cohesive group and identity which exaggerate the original traits perceived.

Question 6

What three stages of deviancy application did Young argue existed ?

Answer 6

1. Translation of fantasy (police susceptible to accept media stereotypes)
2. Negotiation of reality (police negotiate the person they find to fit the stereotypes)
3. Amplification (labelling leads to a self fulfilling prophecy which may amplify deviance)

Question 7

Who discussed moral panics of ‘hoodies’?

Answer 7

Fawbert

Question 8

What did the moral panic of hoodies suggest

Answer 8

• When shopping centres banned hoodies a moral panic began, driven by the tabloid press.
• The term ‘hoodie’ became a stigmatised label.
• Former metropolitan police commissioner sir John Stevenson called for a longer prison sentence for ‘thugs wearing hoods’.
• Most public thought crime was increasing when it wasn’t.

Question 9

Who discussed the deviancy amplification spiral?

Answer 9

Cohen

Question 10

What were the stages of the development of a moral panic?

Answer 10

• media uses exaggerated language to write stores and headlines about an event or group.
• results in public anxiety which is fuelled by politicians commenting on it.
• puts pressure on authorities to intervene.
• This increases social awareness and can cause more people participating in it.

Question 11

What are examples of moral panics?

Answer 11

• Welfare cheats.
• Refugees and asylum seekers.
• Role of violence in the media.

Question 12

What sociologists directly criticise the interactionist view on the media?

Answer 12

Goode and Ben-Yehuda

Question 13

What do Goode & Ben-Yehuda say in criticism of the interactionist view on the media?

Answer 13

• Say there’s no clear beginning, middle or end when it comes to moral panics, rejecting Cohen’s idea.
• Says there are 5 stages of a moral panic
  1. Concern
  2. Hostility (towards group, creating ‘folk devils_
  3. Consensus (Powerful agencies campaign against)
  4. Disproportionality (reaction is out of proportion)
  5. Volatility (moral panic comes and goes)

Question 14

What sociologists criticise Cohen’s theory on moral panics?

Answer 14

Goode & Ben-Yehuda

Question 15

What are the 5 stages of a moral panic that Goode & Ben-Yehuda discuss?

Answer 15

1. Concern
2. Hostility (towards group, creating ‘folk devils_
3. Consensus (Powerful agencies campaign against)
4. Disproportionality (reaction is out of proportion)
5. Volatility (moral panic comes and goes)

Question 16

How can the interactionist view on the media be criticised?

Answer 16

• Fail to acknowledge moral panics can be a product of real concerns- media is just reflecting it.
• Lacking evidence that social control act as agents of the elite to control the working class.
• Fail to explain why certain groups are labelled as deviant, and others are not
• Puts too much emphasis on victimising with the perpetrators not the true victims.
  -Goode and Ben-Yehuda: Say there’s no clear beginning, middle or end when it comes to moral panics, rejecting Cohen’s idea.