Moral Panics Essay

Compare and contrast three case studies how do moral panics help form fragmentation in cultural identity? Glen Waine

Case studies used: Rave culture and ecstasy, Video Nasties and Aids

Moral panic can be described as the intensity of a negative feeling towards a particular group of people who appear to be threatening social order at a certain time. In this essay I shall be contrasting three rather different forms of moral panic these being Aids, Rave/Drug culture and Video Nasties.

Raves were originally founded in America, namely Chicago, New York and Detroit but the culture migrated to England around 1988. Raves tended to be located in rural areas, such as large barns, unused or abandoned air fields and large fields in the country. As these raves were illegal the organisers had a technique to limit the chance of police interference. Organisers would keep the rave in question secret until a matter of hours before it was due to begin, as once a rave had started police were almost powerless due to being so massively outnumbered. By the end of the 80’s raves were seen as the largest youth culture Britain had ever encountered as it was seen as a somewhat ‘breeding ground’ for the sale and intake of drugs. Raves also generated a massive revenue for the actual organisers, which could range from £50,000-£75,000. It was not the actual ideology of the raves themselves which caused such a moral panic but the drug uses which went hand in hand with them. Amphetamines were the most commonly used type of drugs, as the consumers would ingest them to be able to dance and stay awake for the entire night. It was not until the media got involved with a relation between the raves and drug culture that a panic set in. The Sun and Daily Mail both published articles about a Midsummer Night Dream party (19890 which took place at an abandoned airstrip; headlines included ‘Ecstasy Airport’ and the articles tended to emphasise the events as nothing more than a attempt to hook an entire generation on drugs under the guise of friendly party’s. Shortly after these articles were published the Media started to focus more on the drug use rather than the events, which was triggered by the death of Leah Betts. Although her death is still closely related to rave culture she actually consumed ecstasy at her own home and instead of dieing of an over dose her death was actually due to swelling of the brain from water intoxication.

Raves and drug culture caused fragmentation and panic particularly with parents. The way the media portrayed and worded their articles turned the minds of thousands of parents creating a great deal of concern with what their children were doing particularly when going out. In terms of cultural identity it would be unfair to say that any one country would be overly ashamed of their appearance due to drug taking as it happens all over the world. Although you can certainly argue that when comparing the generation in question to previous ones a massive change is clearly there, which among other things creates a large sense of worry but with a topic so wide is sadly unavoidable and to an extent uncontrollable.

The next moral panic issue I will be discussing is Aids. This issue can to some extent be linked to the influx in rave and certainly drug culture. As the epidemic was recognised in 1981 - 1986 ( closely related timeframe to rave culture) and one of the ways it was being transmitted was through the use of drugs, although it being heroin and any other drug where it was being administered intravenously. This caused a very large panic with drug users and people/family familiar with drug users. Aids caused a great deal of controversy and stigma especially towards gay men and drug users with the press having headlines such as ‘Gay Plague’. As there was such a panic arisen by the media all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories were being thrown around, such as the disease was created in order to commit genocide and even to kill off homosexuals. Naturally the gay community would have been set into a massive panic but also largely scared of in some cases reporting having the disease, due to the stigma that came with it. Sadly Aids was not only being contracted through sexual activity and sharing needles. Haemophiliacs who needed regular blood transfusions were contracting it to through being given infected blood. This sparked off a large scale panic in itself as all given blood that needed to be used in certain medical procedures could be infected. This itself made people very sceptical about not only aids but medical procedures.

Aids has caused a large collection of opinions on a variety of relating subjects that have linked from the epidemic, but it has been questioned whether moral panic is really the right word to describe it. “ It is time to recognise that the Aids scare was one of the most distorted, duplicitous and cynical public health panics of the past 30 years. Instead of being treated as a sexually transmitted disease that affected certain high-risk communities, and which should be vigorously tackled by the medical authorities, the ‘war against Aids’ was turned into a moral crusade” - Brendan O’Neill.

The term ‘video nasties’ refers to films that are looked down upon for their massively violent content. The term was first introduced in the beginning of the 1980’s and progressed through the 80’s. The films in question were usually looked down upon by religious organisations and the press. Very much like rave culture it was not the actual ideology of the videos that people had a problem with it was more what seeing them would do to peoples perception and judgement especially young children. The most famous case of this is the James Bulger murder. The murder was apparently of a result of 2 boys carrying out a scene they had seen in a film. This type of moral panic is not seen as bad as it could be until actual acts start occurring from the interpretation of certain films being seen. Before the James Bulger happened a ‘moral crusade’ against hugely violent films was launched which involved the UK’s video recordings act. This act tightened restrictions on the codes of censorship on videos, this led onto the banning of many films. Before this act was introduced there was only the Obscene publications act which defined the term ‘Obscenity’ as something that which may corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it. This definition being quite vague was open for interpretation by everyone but it was solely reliant on the director of public prosecutions to decide whether certain films were fit for public viewing.

All 3 examples of moral panic I have mentioned all occur in relatively the same timeframe. Each one interlinks with the other in some degree especially the aids and rave culture examples. Each one causes fragmentation in different ways and to different extents but they all seem to lead the same trend, this being once the subject is raised and commented on by the media its from then that the public escalate it resulting in external opinions leading to panic. Its also easily seen that over the period of time the media or press get involved with it turns into somewhat of a bounce back scenario. What I mean by this is that the media will say something then leading to public reaction which again will return to the medias opinion.