How do Moral Panics form a Fragment of Cultural Identity?
I feel that cultural identity is basically just the same as a collective identity within boundaries of generation and location. I also feel that moral panics are situations that the media blow out of proportion.
Fragments of cultural identities are small parts of a collective identity that have fragmented off from the rest of society usually because of more extremist viewpoints. For example the Nazis started off as a fragment group of socialism because of their extreme views which where too extreme for most allthough over time people grew to support it due to their frustration at the state of government at the time, this shows that even fragment groups can grow to become generally accepted. Fragment groups in the sense of the media are most likely people who are within different classes, genders, ethnicities and ages than the target audiences of specific texts. For example someone who is not middle classed and educated reading the 'Guardian'. They could then be a fragment group of their typical sect in society if they where to be untypical the would simply become fragments of a larger, or parent group. These are usually called "splinter groups". These groups consist of the same overarching moral agenda as the parent group but have a different, usually contrasting, veiwpoint on one or several of the parent group's beleifs. These can be created in the context of moral panics.
For a moral panic to happen you need an emergance of some behaviour and then an irrational fear of the certain behaviour catalysed by the media. This can happen with statistics. For example, "75 women raped by plumbers". This phrase does not mention over what time period this has happened, it could be over 400 years for all we know but never the less, some of the audience will take this as the hypodermic needle model suggests, without any real thought or external input. These members of the audience will form a collective identity who dislike and judge the moral agenda of a general group of people, the plumbers.
I feel that cultural identity is basically just the same as a collective identity within boundaries of generation and location. I also feel that moral panics are situations that the media blow out of proportion.
Fragments of cultural identities are small parts of a collective identity that have fragmented off from the rest of society usually because of more extremist viewpoints. For example the Nazis started off as a fragment group of socialism because of their extreme views which where too extreme for most allthough over time people grew to support it due to their frustration at the state of government at the time, this shows that even fragment groups can grow to become generally accepted. Fragment groups in the sense of the media are most likely people who are within different classes, genders, ethnicities and ages than the target audiences of specific texts. For example someone who is not middle classed and educated reading the 'Guardian'. They could then be a fragment group of their typical sect in society if they where to be untypical the would simply become fragments of a larger, or parent group. These are usually called "splinter groups". These groups consist of the same overarching moral agenda as the parent group but have a different, usually contrasting, veiwpoint on one or several of the parent group's beleifs. These can be created in the context of moral panics.
For a moral panic to happen you need an emergance of some behaviour and then an irrational fear of the certain behaviour catalysed by the media. This can happen with statistics. For example, "75 women raped by plumbers". This phrase does not mention over what time period this has happened, it could be over 400 years for all we know but never the less, some of the audience will take this as the hypodermic needle model suggests, without any real thought or external input. These members of the audience will form a collective identity who dislike and judge the moral agenda of a general group of people, the plumbers.
In terms of a real scenario; the rave culture hype. A relatively harmless movement of youth, where they had an anarchic, unlawfull and pluralistic style of rule, with no real heads and secret meeting places. It provided the three main missgivings for it to become a moral panic; "drugs, sex and pleasure". People became so worried about it several acts where passed so that the raves had to be stopped. For these conclusions to occur there needs to be
In conclusion, moral panics form a fragment of cultural identity by making the problem seem much worse than it actually is and then different people from the same cultural identity disagree on certain factors of the 'panic'.
In conclusion, moral panics form a fragment of cultural identity by making the problem seem much worse than it actually is and then different people from the same cultural identity disagree on certain factors of the 'panic'.
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