SOCI-2086EL Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Boxing Day Shooting, Toronto Police Service, Health Sciences North
Document Summary
Moral panics, politics, and crime module four. Cohen"s model also defined the role of folk devils and moral entrepreneurs in the process of creating the panic. Folk devils were the perceived chaotic evil-doers in the panic who were undermining society and moral entrepreneurs were those politicians, reporters, professors, and activists capitalizing on the panic to promote their own specific agendas. An event occurs (or a rumour becomes widespread) that elicits an emotional reaction. The mass media must then decide if it is worthy of dramatic coverage and whether the event or rumour will be expressed as an event the public should further worry about. Stage 2: wider social implications (fanning the flames) Connections are made between one event and the wider degeneration of society as a whole. Moral panics seek some sort of resolution and this often comes with a change in the law, designed to further penalize those established as the threatening deviants at the source of the panic.
