The media is a key site of struggle; it is the arena of liberal pluralism in which political ideologies and their social impacts are contested. It can be argued that the media commodifies public concerns by creating moral panics and constructing folk devils, who appear to be the cause of wider social problems. However, the media also constrains the tyranny of the majority. It holds the powerful to account by highlighting inequalities experienced by marginalised groups, which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. An example of this is Amelia Gentleman’s investigative journalism that brought the Windrush Scandal to public attention. Nevertheless, we should not overlook that the media accumulates capital by appropriating our feelings, thoughts and attention:, psychologically, physically and sociologically.
The mass media is adept at sensing our feelings of inertia, and has the power to change our priorities and refocus our concerns, regardless of whether a significant issue has been resolved. Consequently, the media entertain us by converging our gaze as we passively drift from one scandal to another: from Windrush to contaminated blood, to postmasters . However, in all the injustices mentioned above, the media often downplays the clandestine role played by our absent or unaccountable State, in precipitating serious harms on the public. A reason why we might overlook the inability of government to govern, is that all our respectable fears concerning the maintenance of the social order, are built on the need to believe that our rulers are fundamentally decent, democratic and accountable to the public who they ‘supposedly’ serve. Although a ‘few bad apples’ might slip through the political net from time to time, believing in the general good of government suppresses our existential fears about the future. However, neoliberal governmentality takes a laissez-faire stance, and its philosophy of social and economic individualism aligns with the news values of the media. Therefore, the pursuit of truth and social justice are not necessarily objective aims of our news agencies.
With no government to steer the ship on course, the public will do one of two things: i. bring down its veil over the signs and symbols that indicate the disintegration of society’s moral tapestry, and subsequently sleepwalk into impending disaster; or ii. subject the ‘folk devils’, who they perceive to be the source of social strain, to the tyranny of the majority. Unaccountable governmentality = MOB RULE! Which side of this equation is the media on?
SOCIAL ACTION SOCIETY C.I.C. 
Neave- Knife crime is portrayed in the media to be predominantly young males of working class and are usually targeted at Adults of middle class causing a panic. The panic is unnecessary because of the fact that young working class are more likely to be victims of knife crime than anyone else.
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Sage –
Knife crime:
Knife crime is exaggerated in the media. Aggressive crimes are often over represented for the shock value that sells newspapers, and within these over exaggerations theres also the overrepresentation of young black men as criminals.
The folk devil here is generally young black males, for a long period of time the image of black males has been put onto newspaper front covers as a symbol of aggression, or something to “look out for”. This is an unnecessary exaggeration of who commits these crimes. With the folk devil being young black males, it’s easier to distract the working class with racism and a fear of specific social groups, and with the working class being distracted by fearing each other, mass media benefits from our fear by selling us this exaggerated story. A lot of people buy into this because of the confirmation bias they have, once they have this racist belief in their head, it’s easier to see the racist representation of knife crime as a confirmation that black people are dangerous, which is completely untrue and very disproportionately represented.
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Josh- knife crime in society has been portrayed as being committed by young working class males, in the media they are showing these individuals as idle people who choose to walk around the streets instead of being in school. But in fact this is not the case these young individuals are more then often suspended or expelled from schools leading them to be on the streets. With the media’s help it has made people believe all young poverty stricken people are walking around with knifes creating fear for the general public making them feel they could just be stabbed at random in the streets when seeing these people.
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Corinna- I feel the media is very quick to target Marginalised groups and make them out to be villains of society, causing moral panic. for example terrorism is most commonly assosciated with Muslims, this In turn has caused society to see Islam as a violent religion, this has caused more racism and discrimination… this has caused people to be quite weary and discriminating against other Muslims. The goverment in my opinion is right wing and reporting in the way they do aligns with their ideology.
another example, knife crime is always associated with young black males which in turn makes society feel fearful of that group of people and a person may be scared of walking past a group of young black males, or even cross the road.
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Woori Chae / The neoliberal government has come to realize that it is capitalistically using the great influence of the media. It exposes more information that the minority wants to convey than the information that the majority wants to obtain. That’s why it makes citizens experience moral panic. It uses these mental thoughts and perspectives to benefit from the liberal market.
Currently, the Korean government is actively taking this method. Post excessively biased information on news and media and induce citizens to feel tired, eventually leading them to consume only light entertainment. At times like this, individuals need to be alert to consuming media and actively seek hidden information. It is also up to citizens to suppress such government.
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Emily – Welfare benefit claimants
i. The folk devil is the stereotype that ‘lazy’ people, who choose not to work are the majority of claimants in the UK. However, this is not true as there people who cannot work due to a number of reasons including children, thus they require childcare.
ii. The media, especially mass media, have portrayed claimants as ‘lazy’ people thus, there is a consensus within the upper and middle-classes that taxation is going towards this group. The media ignore the real reasons as to why people are welfare benefit claimants and instead embody fears of the upper and middle class.
iii. The moral panic is exaggerated. Although there will be ‘lazy’ people, who choose not to work, this is a very small proportion.
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Ewan Thompson
The devil folk are described as people seen as lazy due to not working as hard as other social classes, in todays world social classes have made bigger brackets of being defined as first class or lower class, the devil folk are seen as people that don’t want to work and claim from the wealth benefit and optionally don’t work, where as some people have disabilities and families to look after full time which creates tension on those that take advantage of this system.
Another way could be seen as the media portraying that immigration is taking all of our jobs where it’s the lower class choosing to claim benefits for supposedly having mental health issues which is a generation of British citizens avoiding work they don’t like, so somebody has to do the work and it ends up being cheaper to employ European citizens
Also because devil folk are seen racially as just unemployed black people are classed as gang culture where as riots in 2011 were a bunch of different minorities that took part in shop lifting and damage caused to public areas as mentioned in the lecture
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Connie
An example of a media moral panic is gang culture. The media over represent violent crimes which involve gangs. The folk devil in this example would be young teenagers, especially if they are wearing hoodies. At one point there was a moral panic on teenagers wearing hoodies. I believe in this case it is an exaggerated moral panic because not every teenager wearing a hoodie is violent or part of a gang. Due to the media, people will see a teenager wearing a hoodie in public and already have a preconceived idea of the individual. Just like if someone was to see a group of young boys standing in the street they’d assume they’re a gang. Although There’s no denying that hang culture does exist, the media doesn’t help when portraying an incident in the media. The media will over exaggerate and use words to scare the public and catch their attention
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Catherine Millard & Jack Deakin
Sexual assault and deviance, the folk devil changes based on time and context. In recent times the folk devil has been police officers. The media was telling women that they weren’t safe to contact the police following the Sarah Everard case. The police officers were portrayed as corrupt, predatory and abusing their power. Even though there was a high profile case involving this, the media created moral panic by exaggerating the frequency of such severe cases. This subject is interesting because it highlights how fickle the media is and how much it influences public perception. Police are normally portrayed as the saviours in situations but the media had the power to change the public opinion of them.
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Morgan: welfare benefit claimants are primarily portrayed in the media as being single parent households (particularly those of women) who are too lazy to attain a job. This explanation is problematic due to its generalisation. Neoliberalists are a group among the people who support this common sense explanation, they also are unsupportive of the idea of the welfare state as they say this reproduces laziness and sedentary lifestyles.
Marxists however, would argue that the welfare state does not benefit the disadvantaged. It keeps them in this cycle of inequality by only helping them a certain amount. The welfare state will only contribute a portion towards a persons expenses. In many cases, the portion left to pay by the individual is still above the threshold of what they would be able to pay. This can in turn lead to a turn towards criminal activity.
Criminal activity, for many, can be a legitimate source of income that is guaranteed. According to feminists, women are socialised from an early age into being the primary care givers for children. This explains why women are more likely to engage in petty crimes in order to provide for their families.
The media exaggerates the idea that single parent households are committing benefit fraud, by focusing on this subject instead of more serious white collar crimes. The media’s representation of this issue is supported by the governments values. This therefore means that due to the neoliberal ideologies in todays government, the welfare state is not supported, and by influencing the publics ideas that people who claim benefits are lazy, they are advocating for the abolition of the welfare state.
This is a significant problem for those who rely on the state to feed their families and to survive in society.
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Prisca
Theres an increase of young black boys in the uk carrying around knives and committing knife crime
The media portrays Young black men as dangerous and aggressive.
Yes i do believe there is a increased amount of young black men being found with knives however i believe that theres more stop and searches being done . I don’t believe that everyone carrying a knife if carrying it in order to commit a crime more so for protection and i don’t believe that they are a threat to the public either.
Those carrying knives have either been kicked out of school or don’t enjoy it and find themselves outside without support or education and that should be the publics concern. That there is Young black men outside that feel more safer carrying a knife.
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Denis-Alexandru;
The idea of “folk devil” is used by the media as a tool that helps portrait a person/group as the “villans” in certain situations.
In the UK, media took a turn for the worse, using everything they can so that can make profit. Unfortunately sometimes they like to over-exagerate stories and that gives the targeted group of people a bad name, leaving them to carry this “burden” into society.
In some cases the moral panic is justified as not every crime is the same and some may present a higher risk of repercussions, but that is not the case for every situation.
After WWII immigration and immigrants were portrayed in the media as evil and everything was blamed on them. Rape and murder cases were put on black and carribean people just because of the fact that white British people did not like the fact that they “invaded” Great Britain. This sentiment towards minorities stayed the same even in the modern days. With more people and groups of people such as me, europeans, middle-eastern and so on, being portrayed by news outlets as job stealers and all the other derogatory nicknames.
We have been described as folk devil especially after brexit, with crime against minorities rising alarmingly.
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Seungjoo Lee:
I agree your perspective about media- the neoliberal goverment relationship. I looked many examples on the article in my country, Korea. In this era we have no choice but to consume media content, but at the same time we have to rememeber ‘dont believe everything in the media’.
And readers of contemporary media must make sure not to blindly take in information provided to them but must learn to critically think of the hidden messages or intentions behind them.
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Umer Fawad-
Folk devil is an idea that the media portrays certaing group of people as the problem in a social place. For example the belief that society is being broken down by gang culture, relating to gang culture. Media would relate the blame onto problems such as the influence of ‘drill music’ or report it on the fact of their race, background and beliefs. Moral panic is often exaggerated in the media for the means of commodity of the general public. The same can be said in comparison to Knife Crime. Gang Culture and Knife Crime are interrelated in the media as a way of saying there is no difference between the two groups. The media will and always has related it to Black people directly or indirectly. If we go further down the whole it can also be used as an agenda to report ‘Mass Immigration’ and how it will have an affect on communities within the country. The 3 things mentioned are a moral panic for the media to profit and plant an idea in publics mind.
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Knife crime – The folk devil for knife crime is Young Black Males. They are constantly targeted and highlighted in the media. Victims of knife crime are often presented in the media as being part of a gang even though they aren’t. Knife crime incidents are constantly being reported in the media therefore causing a moral panic. This leads to the public being intimidated or in fear of young people even though they ware they are harmless. We then question whether there has been an increase in knife crime or has the media exaggerated it.
lewanna
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Sajina khawas
Media should over look the problem and should bring out in social media as it is instead of exaggerating, propaganda . Because media is only the medium through which they can gain the information
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Knife crime often leads to the creation of folk devils, typically blaming certain demographics or subcultures for the problem rather than addressing the underlying factors contributing to it. Sharon Massampo
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Yeonsu Kim : In era IT is general, I think people are ‘dominated’ by media, and just do ‘dominate’ media too. According ‘Prosumer’ concept by Alvin Toffler, people can reveal their individual opinions and desires in media, and this usually spreaded rapidly, eventually influence others. This is the way for people’s dominating media and resistance to policy. But, i think we need to take precaution ‘The big influencer,’ (it can be richer, politician …) to get media literacy. If we don’t, (If we don’t get media literacy) we may forget the fact that IT is mutural related with capacity, poltic power as opinion’s spread, nevertheless IT is genually. Because although SNS’s power is getting bigger, massmedia (ex. Big broadcast like BBC, and big newspaper…) has ever big power as deliver news. So i agree the above article as we are co-related with media passively and actively both.
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Sara
Folk devil is the content of sexual grooming would refer to how the society creates a villain to blame for the particular issue. In the media, sexual grooming is often portrayed as a serious and touching subject to most individuals and this would normally highlight the danger and negative impacts of grooming and how it tends to have a awful effect on the victims life. The media also talks about how we can raise awareness and protect the younger vulnerable individuals. The topic can sometimes get exaggerated where they add they’re own little information and to the point where they would also expose who the victim is or how the whole topic started not even considering if the victim feels comfortable or not but at the same time the topic of sexual grooming shouldn’t be neglected as it’s really important for us to educate ourselves about how to prevent this and how we can protect the youngsters on social media as sexual grooming starts from there.
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Niyaz
Folk devil is a person or group of people who are portrayed in the media as outsiders and are blamed for different types of crime as well as other social problems for example in 2018 there was a high increase in people carrying knives and using them. This had made the media erupt making up their own ideologies and getting out that it was a serious youth problem and the people that it was focused on was racialised as the image of “black crime” The media for these types of cases would always try get there word out indirectly positioning black young men at the centre of all knife crime. The moral panic in this situation is clearly exaggerated because yes knife crime has increased a lot but targeting a certain group makes it worser because it aggravates the people making them cause panic and fear instilled into young kids and people because they are scared of being accused and targeted racially.
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Amy
moral panic of gangs have emphasised the impact of media images as well as the public, police and legislative response in relation to the immediate threat posed by gangs. The moral panic from gang culture is not exaggerated as there is genuine cause for concern. The moral panic has the power to change how the youth in impact communities perceive themselves
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Folk devil – Middle aged Asian men
Moral panic – Modern Slavery,
the fear that middle aged Asian men will force you as a woman to work for them against your will.
Women of any age being sexually exploited, being forced into working in brotthells in aid to make money for the middle aged Asian men Modern Slavery ring.
Steph Dingley
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Suwon Han 2417474
As the media’s influence increased, I thought it could not be ignored. I think only transparent media can inspire faith in the government. However, the problem is that media is used to cover up issues that arise in the country. I could learn that we needed to accept such media as critical thinking rather than as it is. Also, I feel that we need to focus on facts, not just what is shown.
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