Crime Media Culture 2011 Cohen 237 43

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Whose side were we on?The undeclared politics of

moral panic theory

Stanley Cohen 1

AbstractThis paper deals with some hidden political dimensions of moral panic theory. It concentrateson the implications of two related claims about what this battle meant: first, that moral panicsare inherently normative and can be categorized as good and bad moral panics (the ones thatwe study are invariably bad); second, that students of moral panics have to take sides in thisnormative battle. There are differences in the ways this question was originally posed in the late1960s and today.

Keywordsdeviance, labelling, moral panics, social control

This paper deals with certain political aspects of moral panic theory. We have long been aware ofthe hidden and not-so-hidden political agendas which lie behind the strategies and rhetoric ofmoral panics. Most of the subject has been well exposed and helpfully analysed (Garland, 2008).We have not always, however, followed up the awkward claim that the concept is inherently

judgemental, normative and biased. Nor are there satisfactory answers to a derivative question:can there be good and bad moral panics? (Cohen, 2002). All such questions – versions of the old1960s sociology of deviance slogan ‘Whose side are we on?’ – sound embarrassingly simplified tothe postmodern consciousness. But these questions, 40 years (!) later, remain the same (and areby no means simple).

Examples include: How do political considerations influence the primary selection of certainconditions for exposure and construction as a potential moral panic? Then, after the conditionbecomes a candidate for moral panic status, how do primary definers – the media, politicians,social control agents, moral entrepreneurs – use particular political tactics and rhetorical construc-tions? What are the dominant political consequences of moral panics? And so on.

1

London School of Economics, UKEmail: [email protected]

17603 CMCXXX10.1177/1741659011417603CohenCrime Media Culture

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238 CRIMEMEDIA CULTURE 7(3)

Taking Sides: Good and Bad Moral PanicsAt first the answers were couched in terms of the liberal and pluralist model of boundary mainte-nance and Durkheimian rule clarification. Examples came from the short-lived category of ‘crimeswithout victims’ which, however misguided, brought out basic definitional disputes about devi-

ance such as homosexuality, pornography, drug-taking, gambling and abortion. These were allsubject to contestation even between societies within the liberal consensus. Policing the Crisis (Hall et al., 1978) took on the highly consensual crime of mugging, and proposed a more hegem-onic view of values and a more political view of the context of moral panics. But both versionstook for granted their own antagonism to the values that were being defended by the moralpanics. The increased blurring of the boundaries between crime and politics – the politicization ofcrime and the criminalization of politics – began to complicate life in some unexpected directions.Thus two criminologists have now explicitly applied the moral panic model to ‘obviously’ politicalphenomena such as the war on terror (Welch, 2006) and the domestic aspects of the United

States’ war with Iraq (Bonn, 2010). The results of such exercises – whatever they may add to ourunderstanding about terror and warfare – certainly bring out the political narrative behind moralpanic theory.

But can anyone on ‘our side’ find a good, positive or approved moral panic? Jenkins, one ofthe few students of moral panic who explicitly poses the question, is also one of the few whostubbornly stands outside the liberal consensus. He repeats the familiar charge that moral panictheory ensures (by circular logic) that its claims to objectivity will always sound bogus or exagger-ated: ‘Whoever heard of a legitimate panic or of well-founded hysteria?’ (Jenkins, 2009: 36,emphasis in original). Cases are still chosen, he claims, because of their suitability for debunkingby liberals. Moral panic is another term of political correctness (a poor argument as there have infact been numerous moral panics around child abuse).

Let us take a more nuanced look at this standard criticism. Is there, indeed, something aboutthe construction of moral panics which is not being openly declared?

The standard critique sees moral panic attribution as a form of libertarian permissiveness, atolerance of certain conditions which should surely be condemned. The first wave of new devi-ancy theory had indeed argued that too much stuff was being criminalized, deviantized or prob-lematized: ‘defining deviance up’, as this was later called. But – so went the attack – the socialanxieties of people directly affected were justified and genuine responses to actual suffering orfuture risk. The moral responses by people who are not directly affected but who become involvedare surely normal (or even praiseworthy) and don’t deserve such pejorative labels as ‘moral enter-prise’ or ‘media bias’ just because their zeal might lead to perfectly reasonable mistakes, exag-gerations or rhetorical excesses.

A stronger version of the critique traces moral panic theory back to the romantic undertonesof the 1960s. Not only were ‘crimes without victims’ (a dodgy category itself) to be decriminalized– defining deviance up – but these lives (or ‘life styles’) were at least viable, at most admirable,even heroic. This is our first glimpse of an answer to the simplistic question: ‘Whose side are youon?’ Unfortunately for those trying to create a moral panic about moral panic theory, this glimpseof subversion was all they got. According to the narrative of self-correction, critical criminology

now shed its deconstructive impulse and had begun again to take crime more seriously.








Cohen 239

It is true that the eclectic elements in the original discourse – symbolic interactionism, libertar-ian socialism, restorative justice – hardly added up to a coherent social policy. Social policy is bydefinition interventionist. In the case of crime control policy this usually means creating andenforcing regulations. These responses make sense only if you have taken the problem seriously.

It is, of course, possible – I would say desirable – to be sceptical, debunking and deconstructive atthe same time as being interventionist and activist. In the standard narrative, however, the sup-posed incompatibility between deconstruction and intervention now becomes untenable; there-fore the paradigm shifts to ‘left realism’ and ‘taking crime seriously’. The gradual but massiveinfluence of feminism plus the general ‘discovery’ of the victim created more loops of denuncia-tion, more rules and regulations, more deviance – ‘emotional abuse’, ‘hate crime’ and ‘sexualharassment’ are typical examples – and hence more moral panics to be identified and studied.

Carry On PanickingI have no objective baseline nor valid measurements of expansion, but my strong impression isthat, since the mid 1990s, there have been significant increases in (1) the sheer number of newmoral panics (difficult to prove); (2) the publicly registered responses to labelled moral panics (rea-sonably easily proved by media references, Google counts, and so on); and (3) the rate at whichthose moral panics become academic case studies (very easy to prove by such methods as citationindexes or the number of papers submitted to conferences like this one with titles like ‘MoralPanics in the Contemporary World’). What can be going on behind these increases?

A number of theoretical lines are worth following. In the original version of Folk Devils andMoral Panics (Cohen, 1972), I used Leslie Wilkins’s ingenious adaptation of cybernetic theory toexplain two central matters: (1) how tolerance levels depend on the amount and quality of infor-mation about deviance; and (2) how under certain conditions, moral panic led to deviancy ampli-fication – an increase in the amount and intensity of deviance. This model was somewhat toomechanical and deterministic for those of us following the spirit of the 1960s. I stopped trying tokeep track of these ideas which had become increasingly technical and quite disinterested in socialproblems.

But the term ‘information society’ has a resonance and mystique of its own. We can easily seethat changes in information technology and the massive potential of social networks alone wouldaccount for the ease and speed with which the stages of moral panics can be transmitted and

constructed. A more familiar source is the ideological glue which holds the enterprise together.We can now monitor (even at the international level) the pathways, conflicts, policy options andturning points in the construction of ideological panics. This applies to the binding and overarch-ing ideologies (religion, communism, environmentalism) as well as to the restricted single issue(such as a particular violation of medical ethics, an act of extreme sexual violence, or a policemisjudgement).

Links with existing social movements and identity politics have been examined as well as thepolitics of individual panics (for example, feminism and sexual violence). There have been fewerattempts, however, to study groupings according to the content of the panics. Do moral panics

about gender issues share the same political strategies and deep structure as those about race,ethnicity and immigration? Four subjects are of greatest significance in shaping the current terrainof moral panics:








240 CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 7(3)

First, there are moral panics inspired by feminism, either directly (in areas such as gender bias,discrimination, sexist public talk and/or conduct, sexual identity) or indirectly (child abuse, familyviolence, trafficking). These have been constant objects of both media-driven and enterprise-driven panics. In such cases ideology either supports or undermines other interests. A recent

example will, I believe, become iconic in its banality. On 21 January 2011, two well-known SkySports football commentators, Andy Gray and Richard Keys, made disparaging and sexist remarksabout a female assistant referee. They hadn’t known that, during a break in a live broadcast, themicrophones had been left open by mistake (though not audible to the listening public).

This conversation was leaked to the Daily Mail , immediately sparking off a furore, with thenewspaper appealing to its readers for solidarity in denouncing this ‘sickening sexism’. Sky Sportsannounced that there would be disciplinary action (fines, suspension) but this was not enough.More incriminating recordings were leaked. Sky Sports fired the two commentators with immedi-ate effect. The five-day moral micro-panic was over. Recent manoeuvres by and within RupertMurdoch’s media empire suggest aspects of the story other than the feminist consciousness ofDaily Mail readers. The fall-out from the phone-hacking scandal allied with Murdoch’s desire tobuy up all the shares in BSkyB which he doesn’t yet own made him particularly keen to resolve theissue as soon as possible and in a publicly acceptable way. Most people were content enough withthe Independent ’s conclusion on 25 January 2011 that ‘not only was the prejudice expressed byKeys and Gray shocking, it also cast grave doubts about their future credibility whenever footballis besieged by something we might describe as a moral crisis’ (Lawton, 2011). It is rather morelikely that this incipient panic was resolved for reasons which had less to do with morality andmore with market considerations and the volatility of media interest. There are more generalissues about brief or aborted panics; for example, if the moral righteousness that animates theirstart-up is so persuasive and sincere, it is hard to see why this fades away so soon. Is it too facileto see serious issues now surrendered to the aesthetics of Twitter – sporadic, mindless and stac-cato yelps rather than the heavy, doom-laden and protracted howls of the classic moral panic (forexample, when reporting of high immigration figures sparks off a ponderous analysis about theerosion of British identity in the 20th century).

There were three ideologically driven subjects which had long been ‘waiting’ for their place onthe historical stage. They needed some permutation of dramaturgical potential, media space, suit-able victims, precipitating incident, folk devils in waiting and an appealing narrative. First, there iscorporate crime , especially the issues of accountability, responsibility and cover-up (the Bernie

Madoff icon); second, there are crimes of the state and allied categories or forms: crimes againsthumanity, war crimes, genocide, torture (Mugabe, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein – a whole galleryof icons); and third are gross environmental crimes and problems such as pollution, climate changeand its denial (Exxon, BP).

New forms and features of moral panics are already emerging – trying to adapt in evolutionary-like style to the new conditions of postmodernity. Here are a few; their final shape is not yet clear.

1. It is easier for us (sociological critics of moral panics) to identify with the kind of moralentrepreneurs behind new panics than with traditional entrepreneurs. We are closer to

them in social class, education and ideology. Moreover we are more likely to agree withthem about the distinction between moral panic (the problem is taken too seriously) anddenial (the problem is not taken seriously enough).








Cohen 241

2. The alliances between political forces are now more plastic and flexible. Panics about ‘gen-uine’ victims (of natural disasters, for example) generate more consensus than uncertain, oreven ‘unworthy’, victims such as the homeless.

3. Traditional moral panics are elite engineered. The new panics may not be entirely populist,

but do give more space to social movements, identity politics and victims.4. Theoretically there can be ‘negative’ moral panics (the traditional ones that criminologistsso readily detect, expose and criticize) but also ‘positive’ ones where we approve the valuesbeyond the ‘panic’ but not the label itself. It sounds considerably more sensible to talk ofan ‘approved crusade’ than an ‘approved panic’. But this would lose precisely the particularconnotation of ‘panic’ that one wants to retain!

5. The dominant tone of new panics is no longer non-interventionist. Indeed, more interven-tion is the (literally) observable index of success, in particular the construction of more laws,rules, contracts and regulations. The social bases of the new criminalizers (Cohen, 1988)is surely of interest – either (1) they are post-liberals who come from a decriminalizinggeneration – private morality is not the business of the state, net-widening leads to thehidden extension of state power, and so on, or (2) they are part of the new right – they areagainst state power that takes the form of regulation over health, welfare, disease risk,protection, ‘hate’ and the environment, but private morality (sexuality, abortion, lifestyles)should become even more the business of the state. They also have few problems with theextension of the correctional system.

6. Certain new moral panics can be understood as ‘anti-denial’ movements. The message isthat the denial – cover-up, evasion, normalization, turning a blind eye, tolerance, and so on– of certain social conditions, events and behaviours is morally wrong and politically irra-tional. Acknowledgement becomes the slogan. The previously denied realities must now bebrought to public attention, their dangers exposed, their immorality denounced.

It is near-impossible to use certain words in a neutral way: passivity, inertia, silence, apathy, indif-ference, normalization, collusion, cover-up, turning a blind eye, the bystander effect, compassionfatigue. The opposite of all this is acknowledgement of the truth and acting accordingly. My bookStates of Denial (Cohen, 2001) is a study of the workings of denial: the avoidance – by individualsand whole cultures – of uncomfortable knowledge, the many states of knowing and not knowingat the same time.

Let me use climate change denial to illustrate how certain newer features of moral panicsappear in the shell of the old. The rhetoric about climate change draws on the classic moral panicrepertoire: disaster, apocalyptic predictions, warning of what might happen if nothing is done,placing the problem in wider terms (the future of the planet, no less). The climate change move-ment tends increasingly to construct any scepticism, doubt, qualification or disagreement asdenial. And they mean not just the passive denial of indifference but also the active work of ‘deni-alists’. Sceptics are indeed folk devils: treated like retarded or crazy persons, people who just don’tget it – like flat earthers – or who are on the payroll of oil corporations. Some entrepreneurs havesuggested that climate change denial should become a crime like Holocaust denial; deniers should

be brought before a Nuremberg-style court and made responsible for the thousands of deathsthat will happen if the global warming alarm is not heeded.








242 CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 7(3)

These apocalyptic visions are too extreme to be taken very seriously by the sociology of moralpanics. Climate change (and the whole Green movement) is, however, of special interest to usbecause of the pervasive presence of the ideology in mundane settings (home, school, media andworkplace). In these settings, the good citizen has to conform to regimes of behaviour control

(recycling, energy saving, diet) which are not onerous in themselves but which demand a monop-oly in what constitutes ‘ethical living’. But important as environmental issues will be as potentialsites for moral panics, I believe that the most important site will be anything connected withimmigration, migrants, multicultural absorption, refugees, border controls and asylum seekers.This subject is more political, more edgy and more amenable to violence. Note also how muchmore politically ambiguous and intellectually difficult these new subjects can be. What, for exam-ple, do we think about women wearing the burkha? Why is the French legal ban on wearing theburkha seen by some multiculturists as a victory, by others as a defeat?

But instead of such ad hoc comparisons, I agree with Critcher (2009: 30) that we need a priorcriterion or typology. Critcher sees moral panic as an extreme form of moral regulation with itsown conceptual category. He identifies three dimensions of ‘discursive construction’ for distin-guishing between forms of moral regulation or between regulation and panic. Imagine ranking(high/medium/low) each of the following dimensions: (1) the perceived threat to moral orderposed by an issue; (2) the extent to which it is seen to be amenable to social control; and (3) howfar it invites ethical self-formation.

The Conference’s initial call for papers resulted in 175 being submitted, 111 of which wereaccepted. 1 Some of these were general theoretical papers for plenary sessions, others mixedempirical data and theory. In the end, some 75–80 papers were presented, each about its ownmoral panic. My rough estimate is that 120 sets of moral panic (some single discrete cases, othersin bundles of similar subjects) are now being studied at PhD level and above in Britishuniversities.

What did they do before we came along to study them?

Note1. Thanks to Amanda Rohloff for this information, and for her other help.

ReferencesBonn, S.A. (2010) Mass Deception: Moral Panic and the US War on Iraq . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers

University Press.Cohen, S. (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics . St Albans, UK: Paladin.Cohen, S. (1988) The object of criminology: Some reflections on the new criminalization. In: Against Criminol-

ogy . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 235–276.Cohen, S. (2001) States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering . Cambridge: Polity Press.Cohen, S. (2002) Moral panics as cultural politics. In: Folk Devils and Moral Panics (3rd ed.). Routledge:

London, vii–xliv.Critcher, C. (2009) Widening the focus: Moral panics as moral regulation. ‘Moral Panics – 36 Years On’,

Special Edition of British Journal of Criminology 49(1): 17–34.Garland, D. (2008) On the concept of moral panic. Crime, Media, Culture 4(1): 9–30.








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Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B. (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State,and Law and Order . London: Macmillan.

Jenkins, P (2009) Failure to launch: Why do some social issues fail to detonate moral panics? ‘Moral Panics– 36 Years On’, Special Edition of British Journal of Criminology 49(1): 35–47.

Lawton, J. (2011) Keys and Gray are supposed to be the voices of football not bitter derision. Independent

25 January 2011.Welch, M (2006) Scapegoats of September 11 th: Hate Crimes and State Crimes in the War on Terror . New

Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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