Media is the primary catalyst for moral panics in society.

Moral panic happens when the media define something or someone as a potential threat to the interest of society’s values. Stanley Cohen is known as one the key Moral Panic theorists, and in 1972 he suggested in his book “Folk Devils and Moral Panics” that moral panic happens when “episode, conditions or group of people are perceived as the threat of social interests and values. Stanley believed the media played a critical role in inducing moral panic even by just publishing the news. Based on Cohen’s views, the media sensationalise and overreacts to different aspects of behaviour that may challenge social norms (Rohloff and Wright, 2010). Therefore, media representation can help define behaviour that can lead to people observing and adapting behaviour based on media reporting. The concept of moral panic was popularized by Cohen’s study of “youthful hooliganism”, which provides relevant keywords for social scientific studies of control, deviance, and crime. The study refers to various episodes where folk devils- visible reminders and moral outlaws of what should not be is considered for the societal malaise (Walsh, 2020). The framework is important because it shows the role of media in amplifying and constructing social issues.

Modern society has many systems in place for protection from dangerous behaviour, including a defined criminal justice system that aims to de-incentivize harmful behaviour such as murder and theft however, such institutions cannot properly regulate every harmful behaviour in society. Knowing that morality is an old toolset to manage human behaviour is critical. People are encouraged to morally punish the deviant behaviour that may threaten society (Mitchelstein, Matassi and Boczkowski, 2020). Humans may use multiple ways to punish moral deviants, including behaviour that may motivate others to punish deviants (gossip) and direct hostility (social ostracism and physical aggression). According to the author, when a threat emerges into a moral panic, people may resort to moral punishment to stop the threat that other regulatory institutions fail to contain. One important model that can be used to understand how the media is acting as the catalyst of moral panic is the amplification model of moral panic.

There are three important elements of moral panic: psychological experience of threat, threat amplifications, and moral punishment. The study shows that the relationship between the elements of the model is bidirectional. When threats are amplified, the related psychological experience can also drive people to share information about the threats further amplifying them. outpouring about a certain moral punishment may suggest that a specific threat requires a concept that explains why “outrage language” can make people share content. Threatening events keep on emerging in society but they may also result in moral panics when 1) stimulating feelings of danger from the potential threat, 2) social information and media amplify the threat, and 3) causing the public to use moral punishment for motivating threats. All such types of moral panic may manifest themselves in different ways. For instance, threats can be further amplified by news stories and how people react to them. while the feelings of danger may include the perceived scope of death and feelings of fear, and individuals have different methods to morally punish deviants.

Most work on moral panic on social media is based on traditional media. Still, the following study will mostly focus on the moral panics caused by social media because it is designed to accelerate and highlight the key elements of moral panic. In other words, it can highlight that social media provides an unlimited supply of threats, limitless opportunities to low moral outrage, and powerful mechanisms to amplify their psychological impact. The social implication model of moral panic is based on the general perspective of “moral panic,” which can be applied to moral panic on social media. People use social media to identify threats such as the threat to politics (end of democracy), personal safety (criminals), and the environment (destruction of the climate). In the first phase of the model, social media helps in spreading the threat by providing explicit information about which threat is important; second, it signals the “virality,” emphasizing the feeling that society is in danger.

In the third stage, society uses moral outrage to mitigate the threat, speaking against or condemning people who are responsible for the threat. The model shows how social media may amplify threats by interacting with people’s minds and triggering their sensitivity to danger. It is critical to mention that people’s sensitivity to threats can create incentives for influencers and news organizations to spread outrage-inducing content and threatening messages to create engagement. Outrage posts, calling attention to harmful behaviour, are rewarded with shares and likes and prioritized by the algorithm to keep users engaged. On the other hand, traditional media promote threats by encouraging the spread of negative news. As a result, collective algorithms and behaviour on social media promote an unlimited supply of that at each hour.

For Cohen, panic shows media events with broadcasters and journalists playing an essential role in recognizing aberrant behaviour and stimulating concerns and consensus. While moral panic influence endures, the rise in the digital platform and social media has widened access to information and completely transformed public knowledge production. Panic status lacks clarity about the boundaries of truth, order, and normality, and such development may raise some critical contemporary questions about moral panic theory.?The author has mentioned that to retain the concept of moral panic conceptual utility; scholars need to integrate how social media influences the flow of power and information (Withrow, 2022). Despite the need to understand the role of technological changes and the media panic, the relevant literature must be more represented to provide diverse analysis. The literature analysis shows that studies on moral panic need to pay more attention to the role of digital communication and have focused on mass broadcasting.?So, the paper will not only focus on the traditional media as the catalyst of moral panic but also consider the role of emerging technologies and social media as the basic catalyst.

The multi-mediated nature of social media that is further accelerated by the “ubiquitous online platform” is negatively diversifying the information on public issues and widening the claim-making capacities of the public. It is essential to know that the social media landscape has significantly changed. Static pages like Friendster and Myspace are replaced with highly dynamic networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit (Rohloff & Wright, 2010). Similarly, online firestorms have become more apparent and frequent. It is important to note that Slate magazine labelled the year 2014 as the “Year of Outrage” with the documentary on the controversy, because of which there were online firestorms each day of the year. However, it will not be untrue to say that 2014 was not an outlier and that the outpouring of digital outrage is caused by many factors, such as social media's virality or information-sharing feature. The concept of Virality is significantly impacting society because it can fuel moral panic. There have been many cases where traditional and digital media have promoted moral panic (Mueller, 2023).

In a few years, social media has transformed from a new paragon of the internet to a globally “despised scourge. Social media was once credited with challenging tyrannical governments and fostering international civil society, but now they are blamed for assortments of social ills. Social media is also raising legitimate concerns about privacy and data breaches; other ills such as addictions, speech, destruction of democracy and mob violence are also caused by social media platforms. The question is why social media is being blamed for moral panic. The answer is that different human activities are now integrated using social media, such as rioting, bullying, and gossiping. Even though, in the past, these interactions were not accessible or visible in society, as such activities have become more aggregated into public, commercial platforms, they have become highly visible and generate searchable and storable records. In simple words, social media has made human interactions to be more hyper-transparent.

So, it can be said that hyper-transparency resulting from social media in social interaction strongly impacts the dialogues about how to regulate communications. Hyper transparency is based on the idea that social media causes moral panic, and that society can be engineered or altered by meddling with intermediaries. The author has mentioned that hyper-transparency generates the fallacy of “displaced control (Hartanto et al., 2021).” The analysis also shows that society reacts to aberrant behaviour exposed through social media by demanding regulations rather than punishing or identifying people responsible for bad actions. Simply, the media promote the tendency to go after the public manifestation of the issue instead of punishing the evil actions or undesired behaviour (Mueller, 2023). The author has mentioned that it is because of social media that society now focuses on the issue rarer than the actor causing the issue, which is a dangerous idea government must take steps to regulate generic technological capabilities instead of bad behaviour.

Concerns about behavioural advertising and foreign interference brought a social media backlash in the 2016 elections. Hypersensitivity brings more offensive and disturbing content to public attention, while moral panic can result in government oversight of private expression and judgment and damaging regulations. The paper will analyse multiple case studies and situations to know how social media is playing its role in promoting moral panic. One of the earliest cases is The London Moster Panis 1970 (Puryear, 2018).

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References

Hartanto, A., Quek, F.Y.X., Tng, G.Y.Q. and Yong, J.C. (2021). Does Social Media Use Increase Depressive Symptoms? A Reverse Causation Perspective. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.641934.

Mitchelstein, E., Matassi, M. and Boczkowski, P.J. (2020). Minimal Effects, Maximum Panic: Social Media and Democracy in Latin America. Social Media + Society, 6(4), p.205630512098445. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120984452.

Mueller, M. (2023). Challenging the Social Media Moral Panic: Preserving Free Expression under Hypertransparency. [online] Cato.org. Available at: https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/challenging-social-media-moral-panic-preserving-free-expression-under [Accessed 20 May 2021].

Puryear, C. (2018). THIS MANUSCRIPT IS CURRENTLY UNDER PEER REVIEW Virality Drives Moral Panics on Social Media. MORAL PANICS ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

Rohloff, A. and Wright, S. (2010). Moral Panic and Social Theory. Current Sociology, 58(3), pp.403–419. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392110364039.

Walsh, J.P. (2020). Social media and moral panics: Assessing the effects of technological change on societal reaction. International Journal of Cultural Studies, [online] 23(6), p.136787792091225. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920912257.

Withrow, T. (2022). The War on Drugs, Moral Panics, and the Groundhog Day Effect: Confronting the Stereotypes that Perpetuate the Cycle of Disparity. [online] Marshall Digital Scholar. Available at: https://mds.marshall.edu/msjcj/vol3/iss1/4/ [Accessed 8 Nov. 2022].