Moral Panic Theory

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The purpose of moral panic theories are to create a society’s consensus towards an incident, individual or a group of people that are a threat to society’s expectations and values (Cohen). The media often constructs moral panic in a stereotypical sense around criminal events and these panics are targeted towards youth. The outcome of moral panic is the government will respond by introducing new laws or policies that prevent criminal behaviour. Today, Australia is known as a multicultural society, however this has created clashes in moral codes between different ethnicities. The media has created a moral panic targeted at a specific group, ethnic youth. In order to understand how society responds to youth. An understanding of the benefits and …show more content…

Media is an important platform to inform and educate society about issues within the community. However, the media can exaggerate issues via emotional language which then leads to moral panic towards a particular individual or group. This increased presence of the 24/7 media cycle and social media provides an accessible platform for ethnic youth to be targeted and experience unfair profiling. Ethnic youth may struggle with their sense of identity and belonging in Australia, however the media uses their forum to emphasise this notion. Although, social media was not present 10 years ago during the Cronulla Beach riots, the media had a significant role in shaping the notions of belonging in Australia (Due and Riggs 2008). This riot highlighted the tensions of ethnic youth and a community of us versus …show more content…

Although moral panic surrounding Cronulla Beach riot was about responding to ethnic youth and crime, it revealed political tension and gaps within policies and in government. The youth are the nation’s future and this results in fear of youth developing into ‘folk devils’, not conforming to social cohesion and expectations. A key element of moral panic is that it promotes an increased concern and fear towards youth. However, scholars state that the Cronulla beach riots involving ethnic youth crime represented the gaps within Australia’s multiculturalism policies. Therefore, it is significant to understand that society should not only respond to youth but overall society should respond to the underlying issues that result in ethnic youth crime. Australia is known as a multicultural nation, with various of programs to support and integrate first and second generation migrants to adjust to Australian way of life. However, the Cronulla Beach riots demonstrated and raised questions of whether, Australia still have the ideology of the White Australia policy. For example, former Prime Minister John Howard introduced a citizenship test which would identify one’s basic level of English, awareness and knowledge of life in Australia and Australia’s common values on the 1st anniversary of Cronulla’s Beach riots (Perera 2014). This

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