The most popular example when detailing the moral panic perspective is that of Cohen's (1972) folk devils, or Mods and Rockers; names used to identify two such subcultures of, in this case, British youth during the 1960s. Mods, or Modernists, were identifiable as "well-dressed [and] fashion- conscience...listened to...The Beatles, the Who...and...rode motor scooters" (Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 1994, p.23). This was in contrast to the Rockers who were "tougher, more politically reactionary, more classically delinquent...[stemming] from a working-class background, and often rode motorbikes" (Ibid.).

    On Easter Sunday, 1964, in a small township named Clacton, England, a rumour circulated that a bartender refused to serve alcohol to a minor. With an abundance of adolescents and young adults loitering on the street, a scuffle soon manifested and factions (of Mods and Rockers) were formed. Motorcycles went up and down the street, windows were smashed on the local dance hall and a few beach huts were destroyed; damages were £500. When the police arrived, they overreacted, arresting over 100 youths (Cohen, 1972, pp.29ff; cited in Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 1994, p.22).

    To many these occurrences would be a rather colourful read without media sensationalism. However, this exhibition of neglect for private property was conducted by youths, demonstrating a, supposed, moral tear in the fabric of society. As such, so as to attempt to establish the status quo, the media proceeded to omit details and greatly dramatised the preceding night’s events. Propaganda-like articles, to establish a negative rapport between youths and the community, were used containing such words as riot, and orgy of destruction. One story claimed that windows of all the dance halls were smashed - true, although only one dance hall existed and only a few windows were smashed (Cohen, 1972, pp.32-3; in Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 1994, p.25). Editorials on youth violence, and interviews featuring Mods and Rockers ensued (pp.29ff; cited in Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 1994, p.22). This dramatisation by the media, portraying youths as threats to law and order, and the safety of the community, created a moral panic in society. That is, community sensitisation had transpired - the public concern was such that when any deviation from the norm, by young men or women, arose, the same "exaggerated and sensationalistic stories were repeated" (Ibid., p.23).

    Community sensitisation became significantly apparent the following year at Clacton. Events or disturbances that were predicted to become a concern by the police was divulged to and reported by the media. The sensitisation was illustrated in a local paper whose vignette read, "Seaside Resorts Prepare for the Hooligans’ Invasion" (Ibid.). On more than one occasion, fervent police action lead to resistance by a group of youths, leading to an exchange of blows, resulting in the youths’ arrest. For Cohen, these events were due to "sensitisation and escalation processes...central to the public’s reaction to the Mods and Rockers" (1967, p.280; cited in Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 1994, p.24). All of this merely stemming from the media’s portrayal of youth as threats to law and order and the safety of the community.

    Kahreman, Slovic, and Tversky’s (1982) view of the extent of fear and the actual crime rate can be held in a parallel light to the, unpublished, events of skateboarders and roller-bladers in today’s society. Kahreman et al. (1982) stated that "the extent of fear of crime in a community is less strongly associated with the actual crime rate than with the amount of news about crime - and the nature of that news - in the media"(Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994, p.97). That is skaters, some years ago, were portrayed by the media as a threat to the safety of the community, using benches in schools and parks and gutters or sidewalks. Although the initial portrayal of these youths was indeed factual, subsequent reports were somewhat sensationalised embellishments of the initial media coverage. Port Macquarie and surrounding districts saw a resurgence in the skating ideology, subculture and lifestyle in 1996. Since there were no facilities for this sub-section of the community, youths were seen using, and consequently defacing, garden blockades near the local Post Office. Complaints from the community were voiced with media coverage following close behind. Although the skaters had not injured anyone, television and print news reports expressed concern over the elderly people being knocked over and young children being hurt. This was a valid concern, however, an underlying moral panic had been created.

    The media coverage, in this case, brought to the fore the imminent need for a skating facility for the youths; the facility was ready for use in the Summer of 1997. This would appear to be the end of any public concern, albeit, media coverage re-emerged soon after. Goode & Ben-Yehuda (1994) argued
 

that "during a ‘Media Panic’ the suspect category is often dusted off and attacked with a renewed vigour" (Springhall, 1998, p.147). The threat of skateboarders to law and order, and the safety of the community was again attacked in 1997 after the park opened. The public outcry was again that the skaters, now with their own outlet, were using public and private property and thus posed a threat to the elderly and the young. What the media failed to report was the the offenders were merely heading towards their new facility. Perhaps this was an example of a slow news day, brushing off a pre-conceived notion and brining the issue to the attention of the community when there was in fact no real need for concern.

    Now that a basic understanding of how Media Panics are created has been established, the finer, more subtle methods employed by the media to create panic, with respect to youth threat, can be discussed. Schissel (1997) suggested that the

    As stated earlier, the media’s portrayal of youth crime is targeted at those who are disaffiliated, or marginalised (Schissel, 1997). In the above case, what the public does not know is that the large number of youth meeting is the result of youth unemployment (up to 30% in Canada). This equates to more idle time and, due to such shopping complexes located centrally, the gathering of adolescents (Ibid.) - the first attributing factor. The second contributing factor is that "[the public] gain their images and opinions about the extent of crime through the media" (Schissel, 1997) combined with the public’s "shortened attention span" (Postman, 1985), results in premature and inferred conclusions by the majority of the community (cited in Schissel, 1997) of today’s youths.

    A common misconception, derived from moral panics set in motion by the media, is that youth crime rates are on the increase, however, the truth lies in the antithesis of this belief. Schissel (1997) & Anleu (1996) describe how the gulf formed between reality and perception, as discussed previously, results in this belief.

    Anleu (1996, p.131) describes the public misconception, stemming from oversimplified media accounts, that youth crime is on the increase. However, an ecological fallacy (an incorrect conclusion based on one part of information which in fact is attributable to a second piece of information), and resulting media panic, is created, over the attention given to the small number of repeat offenders being regaoled, by the media. This is often simply reported as an increase of juvenile crime. [Interestingly, the number of youths coming into contact with established aid panels - an alternative to the covert system - in the 1980’s stabilised and has since decreased (Ibid.). This is supported, somewhat, by Schissel (1997) who explains that "youth crime has not increased significantly, although the prosecution of youth crime has."

    Schissel (1997) further explains that when youths do break the law, "they victimise other youth who are like them". That is , similar to the skateboarding incident described earlier in the paper, a moral panic is created and prejudicial and discriminatory beliefs of the public become a factor in debates on youth crime and safety in the public domain. In other words, the media’s negative portrayal of the non-law abiding skaters creates a moral panic in the public domain so that when a law-abiding skater is seen, irrespective of what that person is doing, an assumed threat, stemming from prejudicial and discriminatory beliefs, is formulated for that particular youth. This lends itself to what Postman (1985;cited in Schissel, 1997) believed occurs when the public, whose attention span is now considerably shorter, views items in the media. According to McLuhan (1962, p.193), "the media have the power to construct slanted or fictional accounts of real-life incidents by decontextualising and simplifying the news" (Schissel, 1997), thus,

    The final chapter in the discussion of the media’s portrayal of youths as threats to law and order and the safety of the community, is the grounds and the way in which the media goes about creating moral panics, or, more specifically, crime panics. According to Schissel (1997), "crime panics are targeted at vulnerable, marginal, and identifiable people who occupy social categories that are based on race, gender, class, and geography," resulting in a media-created folk devil of youth criminals. Schissel’s research (1997) primarily concerned itself with youth crimes, moral panics and the news in Canada. Here he found that "non-white minority groups receive harsher treatment in the legal system than do their white counterparts". A cyclic pattern seemed to formulate among the disadvantaged; becoming more disadvantaged in terms of their treatment in relation to the law and, ultimately, the media. This is particularly true of those of aboriginal ancestry, a "minority-group youth" in Canadian society (Schissel, 1993 & 1997):
 

They [aborigines] experience high rates of unemployment, low levels ofeducational achievement...(cf Wotherspoon & Satzewich, 1995)...that negative images of minority-group youth appear in the media when they are already...disadvantaged...illustrates the nature of the oppression whereby those already victimized [sic] by the courts orthe socioeconomic system are doubly victimized [sic] in the media.
(Schissel, 1997)

    This victimisation of aboriginal youth is also quite clearly evident in the Australian justice and socioeconomic system - particularly the Northern Territory’s policy of mandatory sentencing. The media further exacerbated this issue by portraying aboriginals as the only individuals affected by this law. This created somewhat of an unsubstantiated moral panic since the mandatory sentencing policy affects youths of all ethnic groups.

    The use of racially, broad categorical linguistic devices, utilised by the media, also aids in fuelling moral panics in the public domain (Schissel, 1997). Such unnecessary, unfounded, and generalised criminogenic referents to people of colour include Black, Asian and Native. These are used so as to create a negative image of minority youth groups, "creating associations between criminality and race" (Ibid.), thus resulting in the creation of a moral panic; "police raided the locker of a student at Jarvis Collegiate believed to to be a member of an Asian Posse gang" (Globe and Mail, Toronto, Metro Edition, May 23, 1990: A1, A2) and the Alberta Report (July 31, 1995: 25) "she was surrounded by two native girls who pushed her to the ground..." (Schissel, 1997) are two such examples of this, seemingly, benign however, racial media reporting.

Examples displaying, apparent, objective, however subtle, racialised news reports are included below:

    "New immigrants, especially Vietnamese, do make up a slightly higher proportion of youth gang members" (Vancouver Sun, February 3, 1994: B1; cited in Schissel, 1997) - however, the gangs generally involved members of mixed-race composition;
    "Like all of Canada’s major cities, both Edmonton and Calgary have a growing Asian crime problem" (Alberta Report, October 26, 1992: 22; cited in Schissel, 1997) - an ecological fallacy, since, in Edmonton, 35% of the Asian population is composed of Vietnamese; and
    "Police say most youths in the Indian Posse and the Overlords are Aboriginal, while the other two gangs are racially mixed" (Winnipeg Free Press, September 29, 1994: B1; cited in Schissel, 1997) - here, and in most cases, the term racially mixed is used when racial referents are unclear; it actually refers to Caucasians, the term white is never used.

    The use of colour referents and prejudicial phrases are obviously discriminatory, however, when combined with sensationalised media reports, supported by authoritative sources, the public domain has little need to doubt the validity and reliability of the report. The actual purpose of the referents is explained well by Schissel (1997) who states:

This attitude was further demonstrated when the murder of James Bulger, a two-year old Liverpudlian, gained worldwide publicity. The British press went on a rampage, blaming the underclass for the current social ills in Britain(ibid.). Even after the event, the consensus in Britain was, "unless the poor are dealt with, they will continue to be a social and physical threat to traditional British society" (Ibid.). Yet another case where the media takes a negative stance to the threat of youths, resulting in moral panics in the public domain.
 

    The media holds another monopoly by being able to decide what should be reported and using its authoritative position and contacts to influence the already prejudiced and discriminatory beliefs of society. By publicising that youth crime in a certain area has increased since the influx of a certain ethnic group, supported by a respected, authoritative figure, the public creates a belief, a fear, no less a moral panic, regarding the issue.

    Whether the media targets the marginalised categories of race, gender, geographical location or class; whether or not it embellishes of sensationalises events; or whether the media seeks to portray youths as a threat to law and order and the safety of the community, using its position to create public concern over youth crimes - moral panics will still exist. For moral panics may "lay dormant, [be] dusted off, [then be] attacked with a renewed vigour" (Springhall, 1998).
 

Reference List