Theoretical Models of Moral PanicsGoode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) offer three theoretical models for analyzing the causes of moral panics: 1) the grass roots model, 2) the elite-engineered model and 3) the interest group model. These models can be used to understand different types of moral panics.
The Grass Roots Model -
Suggests that a moral panic arises spontaneously across a broad spectrum of a society's population. The concern and anger about the threat from perceived moral deviants is a response to persistent and widespread social stresses. Anxieties arising from these social stresses are not able to gain direct expression. Instead, the anxieties are displaced and directed toward social deviants, who become regarded as the cause of concern. Newly detected deviants essentially function as collective scapegoats for the anxieties transferred to them (Victor 1992). The targeted deviants are perceived through cultural symbols, which reflect the real, underlying social stresses.
The actions of special interest groups are not necessary to promote moral outrage directed at the newly perceived dangerous deviants. The mass media and social control authorities basically reflect public opinion about the reality of the threat. The key argument of the grass roots model is that these agencies cannot fabricate public concern where none previously existed. However, particular triggering events, or catalysts, may provoke sudden outbreaks of the moral outrage. The role of a contemporary legend in the grass roots model of a moral panic is its function as a catalyst for a sudden outbreak of collective behavior, such as in an aggressive mob.
An example of a grass roots moral panic occurred in France in 1968, when widespread rumors in several cities accused Jewish clothing store owners of kidnapping teenage girls in their stores and selling them into forced prostitution, controlled by international criminal syndicates (Morin 1971). Mobs attacked Jewish-owned clothing stores. The contemporary legend story was based on centuries-old ethnic stereotypes and folklore about Jews as kidnappers of Christian children (Hsia 1988; Langmuir 1990). A similar grass-roots moral panic resulted in a series of over sixty local and regional rumor-panics across the United States from 1983 through 1993, in response to a contemporary legend about secret, criminal satanic cults which supposedly kidnapped blond, blue-eyed virgins, for use in ritual sacrifice (Victor 1989; 1991; 1993a). Another example is the moral panic involving contemporary legend stories about sadists who purportedly give children poisoned or dangerous treats for Halloween trick-or-treat, which sometimes lead to local scares about Halloween sadists (Best and Horiucht 1985).
The Elite-Engineered Model - suggests that a powerful elite can orchestrate a moral panic. The elite uses the major institutions of a society to promote a campaign to generate and sustain public moral outrage about a threat from a target category of deviants. The actual intention of the campaign is to divert attention away from real problems in a society, the solution of which would threaten the economic and political interests of the elite. The elite fabricates a description of the threat and uses the institutions of society, including the mass media, religion, and law enforcement, to shape public opinion. The threat from supposed dangerous deviants is invented, or at least exaggerated, by the elite, to serve its own vested interests. A contemporary legend can be employed by a powerful elite to influence public opinion about a fictitious threat, in order to divert attention from social problems.
In Medieval times, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church organized moral panics and persecutions directed at the Cathar heretics and later the Knights Templars. Another example of an elite-engineered moral panic occurred after Czarist agents used the Jewish conspiracy legend to arouse moral outrage against the Jews, as a means of diverting attention and anger away from the problem of widespread poverty in Russia. The moral panic lead to organized mob attacks and massacres of Jewish villagers. Other moral panics orchestrated by an elite which led to ethnic mass murder, include the murder of about a million Chinese Indonesians in 1965 organized by the Muslim-led army, and the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi citizens in Rwanda in 1994 organized by Hutu leaders. The Stalinist purges and persecution of millions of fabricated internal enemies of the Soviet Union is another example. An example of this type of moral panic in American society is that of 1950s anti-Communist witch-hunt in American society. This moral panic has been interpreted (albeit a controversial interpretation) as having been deliberately orchestrated by the American corporate and political elite, as a way of destroying socialist and union organizing (Gibson 1988; Irons 1974).
The Interest Group Model - suggests that moral panics are an unintended consequence of moral crusades launched by specific interest groups and their activists, who attempt to focus public attention on moral evils that they perceive to be threats to society. In modern times, many interest groups direct their efforts toward presenting their concerns in the mass media in order to influence public opinion. Interest groups and their moral entrepreneurs usually sincerely believe that their efforts serve a moral cause beneficial to the whole society. Nevertheless, their efforts also function to advance their own group's social influence, prestige, wealth and ideological goals. As these interest groups become increasingly successful in influencing public opinion, they stimulate resistance and conflict from competing interest groups. The interest group model suggests that a moral threat expressed in a pre-existing contemporary legend story may be consistent with the moral concerns of certain interest groups and can be employed by them as an instrument to influence public opinion. The contemporary legend may also serve to enhance an interest group's credibility and authority in some special area of moral concern.
An example of a moral panic prompted by interest groups is the "white slavery" scare, which occurred in the U.S from 1907 to 1914. The white slavery scare was a product of a moral crusade against prostitution promoted by fundamentalist Protestants and the women's Suffragette movement. During this scare, the mass media aroused public opinion by publishing many stories claiming that organized criminal syndicates kidnapped young women and forced them into prostitution. Hundreds of unmarried, cohabiting young men, as well as adulterous lovers were accused of engaging in white slavery; some of whom were arrested and imprisoned (Langum 1994).
Another example of a moral panic sparked by interest groups is the "baby parts" scare that occurred in several Latin America countries. A contemporary legend claims that poor children are being kidnapped and butchered for use of their body parts by wealthy North Americans in transplant surgery. Communists and other leftists in Latin America used the baby parts contemporary legend to attack American capitalism and to benefit their political and ideological goals (Campion-Vincent 1990, 1997). The rumors have resulted in physical attacks on Americans. As recently as 1994, two American women in Guatemala were attacked by mobs, which believed that the women were searching for children to kidnap (Johnson 1994; Lopez 1994).
Another example of a moral panic prompted by interest groups was the "stranger-danger" during the 1980s. Best (1990) showed how contemporary legend stories about crimes against children including, kidnapping, child murder, child pornography, arose from to exaggerated claims made by child-protection organizations. A series of similar moral panics arose in Great Britain at about the same time, that linked concerns about serial sex murders, homosexual pedophile rings, sexual child abuse and satanic ritual abuse. Jenkins (1992) showed how these moral panics were caused by exaggerated claims about threats to children made by several interest groups including, child protection organizations, Protestant fundamentalists, and feminist groups.
False Accusations and the Social Construction of Imaginary Deviants
How is it possible that a moral panic could be caused by widespread accusations of crime, lacking in evidence that the criminals even exist? The key insight is that accusations of crime are a claims-making activity. False accusations can construct imaginary deviants, when social control authorities systematically legitimize the accusations.
Criminologist Elliott Currie has shown how even when deviant acts are purely imaginary, as is the case of witchcraft, people can always be found and fitted into the stereotype of the deviants. Currie's (1968) study of the European witch-hunts suggests that a particular combination of four circumstances caused false accusations of witchcraft to be affirmed by authorities as evidence of that some people were witches. First, there was widespread belief in and fear of secret, conspiratorial witches who supposedly practiced black magic to harm people. Second, in response, there gradually evolved a new occupation of experts specialized in detecting witches, the witch-finders. Third, the witch-finders used ambiguous tests (spectral evidence) to detect witches, so that people accused were almost automatically found guilty. This confirmed their expertise and enhanced the authority of the witch-finders. Fourth, the ideology of traditional Christian religion concerning Satan's corrupting influence fueled the Inquisition's search for any kind of potential heretic.
False accusations are a necessary part of a moral panic. In order for a moral panic to take hold among a large number of people, it is necessary for some people to be publicly identified with the perceived threat, even if the deviance of which they are accused is purely imaginary. It is necessary for a group that feels threatened to find visible scapegoats. Klemke and Tiedeman (1990) studied a wide variety of false accusations of crimes and false labeling of persons as deviants, in order to determine the kinds of social conditions that increase the prevalence of false accusations. They found that three social conditions tend to be associated with increases in false accusations. One, there exists a widespread belief in a society that a threat exists from new kinds of deviants. Two, there is competition between newer and more traditional agencies and authorities of social control over jurisdictions of authority. The newer authorities attempt to expand and justify their authority. Three, the investigation of the newly perceived deviance relies on diagnostic instruments and tests, which are oversimplified and ambiguous; and therefore, easily make errors in identifying deviants. I want to suggest a fourth social condition that produces false accusations drawn from my research (Victor 1993a). It is one that results in a distinctly moralistic perception of the deviance: symbolic resonance of the perceived threat with a demonology (to be explained shortly).
