Penny Dreadfuls

Victorian Moral Panic

Penny Dreadfuls - Cheap, serialised literature

Began in France but came to England in 1940s in the form of weeklytitles including 'The London journel and The Family Herald'. The falling costs of printing meant they could typicallybe sold at a penny and the increased litercy rate meant they were mass marketed and by 196os were selling 30,000 to 40,000 copies a week.

In the 196os a census showed that 45% of population was under 20 and litercy was spreading throught the young. Making a clear market for cheap fiction aimes at woung and the birth of the 'true' penny dreadfuls were born. Mass marketed titles aimed at at working class young on the subjects of lurid crimes, gothic roamnce and horror. Including characters such as pirates, highway men and proffesional gentlemen criminal, successful lwa breaking underdogs.

It came under critism due to the fact it invovled law breaking and there was fear the press could do harm to the working class and their morals .

Examples:



The "But none of the teachers, pensioners, mothers, employers and teenagers out shopping at Bluewater want to admit they are part of a society rearing a generation of hooded hoodlums.



Both government and shopping centre initiatives sprang from fearful focus groups. Voters told the prime minister of teens' loss of respect. Shoppers told Bluewater they hated the young hooded gangs listlessly congregating in the brightly lit mall. Its ban was shrewd PR, helping the 330 chain stores identify shoplifters on CCTV and sending a message to shoppers: leave your hoodie-infested local shops and come to Bluewater. (Gamestation, the computer games retailer, opportunistically announced yesterday that it would welcome hooded top-wearing teens into its stores.)

1. Topic Area


Crime and The Media


2. Proposed title, question, hypothesis





3. Teacher approval granted, in principal?





4. Principle texts (if text based study)
Case studys:
teenage magazines
Teletubbies
Mods and rockers
penny dreadfuls


5. Reason for choice
The censorship unit which i found interesting and enjoyable i decided do something we had covered duirng it.


6. Academic context for this study (similar research, relevant theory, named theorists)
Stanley Cohen
deviancy spiral
The efftects model
the grass roots model
the elite-engineered model
the interest group model.
Cause and effect/hypodermic needle theory
cultivation theory introduced by George Gerbner.

7. Institutional context for this study (industry focus, other texts for comparison, named practitioners, relevant theory, issues, questions)
The effect on


8. Identify the audience context for this study (audience profile, access to audience, potential sample)
Audience responce to text
A wide aged audience as moral panics occur throughout history and effect different ages,
questionaires, surveys on how they react to texts, and how they think moral panics affect there tjhoughts on social problems.
It would be good to look at twio different generations i.e teenagers and then the parent generation.

9. How will the 4 key concepts be relevant to your study (audience, institution, forms and conventions, representation)?

Institution - Media (film/TV/magazines) makers how it affects there creativity - teletubies
press- there involvement in causing moral panics, and there motives

Audience - Their consuming the media (magazines/TV programmes and films) that the 'panic' is over (teenage magazines increasing teenage pregnacy, jamie bulger case) It is the general public that are affected and it is their oppinions that cause society to view a certian aspect negativly.

How representation of certain groups are potrayed in long term morale panics e.g youth binge drinking, homesexuals in teletubbies and aids pandamic. - How these are exgagerated causing moral panics over certian type of people, mods and rockers, due to one event caused mistrust of them, and a holligan name for them. More recently the banning of hoodies in blue water, due to the fear of hooded teenagers.


10 Potential research sources (secondary): secondary academic books and websites, secondary industry books and websites, secondary popular criticism. Please identify specific examples you have come across.


Stanley Cohen in “Folk Devils and Moral Panics” (1972)
Romancing the Tomes, Popular Culture, Law and Feminism By Thornton
Media and Crime By Yvonne Jewkes
Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance
The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements By James M. Jasper
Youth Culture in Late Modernity By Johan Fornäs, Göran Bolin


11. Potential research sources (primary): audience reception research, your own content/textual analysis etc12. Modifications agreed with your lead teacher
Surveys on internet, questionaires
one to one interveiws


13. Potential limits/obstacles/problems?


14. Teacher concerns


15. Teacher approval

Deviancy amplification spiral

Deviancy amplification spiral

"Deviancy amplification spiral is a media hype phenomenon defined by media critics as an increasing cycle of reporting on a category of antisocial behavior or other undesirable events"
Stanley Cohen, Moral panics usually include 'deviancy amplification spiral'.

The theory is:

Starts with a 'deviant act' (often criminal)
The mass media report the newsworthy story, which highlight borderline examples that would not have been if they did not confim a patterm, and ignores any statistics showing that it is less common, harmful or anything that would keep the public more rational. This leads to rare problems looking common and minor problems looking more serious, the public thenwan tto keep informed with events. The publicity can glamourize and make it look more acceptable increasing the 'deviant' behavior.

Supporters of the theory; push for more forces against the 'deviant' act. Polics, law enforcers, magistrates and judges, politicians deal more harshly and give out stricter sentences. Causing public to believe the fear is justified while the media is only profiting more from the escalation of panic writing stories on specific arrests.

Stanly Cohen



Folk Devils and Moral Panics

Interest Areas

Crime and the Media
Moral panics
The media and public perceptions of crime.

You could explore the issue of public attitudes to crime, and the possibility of being a victim of crime – do programmes like Crimewatch make us feel more or less secure?

You could explore the notion that the media can provoke criminal behaviour, with specific case studies such as the linking of the killing of Jamie Bulger in 1993 with the film Childsplay 3.

Intial proposal

1. Which topic area is this proposal for? Crime In The Media
2. What is the suggested focus? Moral Panics: examples through out history; how they develop
3. Do you have an idea for a question/problematic?
4. Why would you choose this? Interseted in the topic from the previous Censorship unit
5. Do you have any concerns or are there any limitations to this proposal? Making it contemporary
6. Can you rate it on a sliding scale 1- 5 (5 being great proposal, 0 being lousy proposal)