Synopses & Reviews
We live in a world that is increasingly characterized as risky, dangerous, and threatening. Every day, a new social issue emerges to assail our sensibilities and consciences, seemingly designed to provoke a shared sense of panic. Drawing on the popular UK Economic Social and Research Council seminar series, this book uses the concept of moral panic to examine these social issues and anxieties and the solutions to them. With an introduction by Chas Critcher—coeditor of Moral Panics in the Contemporary World—and contributions from both well-known and up-and-coming researchers and practitioners, this book offers a stimulating and innovative overview of moral panic ideas for students and practitioners and an accessible introduction to the concept for a wider general public.
Review
"It provides a fresh angle and contributes to updating and developing the original concept."
Review
"The Revisiting Moral Panics seminar series was a fantastic success. The book lives up to it fully, constantly engaging the reader in the struggle to make social scientific sense of real world events and preoccupations."
Synopsis
Furedi argues that the traditional terms "left" and "right" have been both distorted and proved inadequate by a number of developments, notably the Cold War, the Culture Wars and (as he's shown in previous books) the prevalance of risk-adverse managerialism. The result is a politics (both big P and little p) that fails to take humans seriously as humans and which, necessarily, evades discussion of right and wrong. Furedi shows that the single most important political need is for an adequate conception of humanity (and, in the process, the public) and that it is this that will produce a new and more imaginative alignment in politics.
Synopsis
Furedi argues that the traditional terms "left" and "right" have been both distorted and proved inadequate by a number of developments, notably the Cold War, the Culture Wars and (as he's shown in previous books) the prevalance of risk-adverse managerialism. The result is a politics (both big P and little p) that fails to take humans seriously as humans and which, necessarily, evades discussion of right and wrong. Furedi shows that the single most important political need is for an adequate conception of humanity (and, in the process, the public) and that it is this that will produce a new and more imaginative alignment in politics.
Synopsis
Furedi argues that the traditional terms "left" and "right" have been both distorted and proved inadequate by a number of developments, notably the Cold War, the Culture Wars and (as he's shown in previous books) the prevalance of risk-adverse managerialism. The result is a politics (both big P and little p) that fails to take humans seriously as humans and which, necessarily, evades discussion of right and wrong. Furedi shows that the single most important political need is for an adequate conception of humanity (and, in the process, the public) and that it is this that will produce a new and more imaginative alignment in politics.
Synopsis
Childhood and youth have often been the targets of moral panic, and this short book explores a series of these pressing concerns about young people: child abuse, child pornography, child sexual exploitation, child trafficking, and the concept of childhood generally. With an appraisal of the work of the influential thinker, Geoffrey Pearson, who wrote on deviance and young people, Childhood and Youth draws attention to the moralizing within these discourses and asks how we might do things differently.
Synopsis
Many of the individual and social problems that are characterized as moral panics are, in reality, illustrations of a breakdown in the legitimacy of the state. Drawing on an appraisal of the work of Stuart Hall, one of the key thinkers in moral panics, this instalment in the Moral Panics in Theory and Practice series gathers together a number of examples of the dissolution of the state—from internet pornography to internet radicalization, the 2011 Tottenham riots, and patient safety—and explores these case studies through the lens of moral panic ideas.
Synopsis
This slim volume offers readers insight into some of the central debates and questions about gender and the family, examined through the lens of moral panic. Beginning with an overview of the role of moral panic in these debates and an appraisal of the work of Stanley Cohen, one of the chief architects of moral panic ideas, Gender and Family then draws on research and practice examples from around the world to explore interconnections between gender, class, race, and age. In this context, it investigates how the state and social work intervene in family life.
Synopsis
Commentators have long debated what is meant by the moral in ideas about moral panic, moral regulation, and moral discourse. This concise but rigorous book teases out some of the fundamental moral questions that continue to perplex us—questions of life and death, good and evil, and sex and the body. With an appraisal of the work of one of the chief architects of the notion of moral panic, Jock Young, Moral Regulation asks whether this concept helps or hinders our understanding of such complex conundrums.
About the Author
Viviene E. Cree is professor of social work studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is series editor of Policy Press’s Social Work in Practice series.Gary Clapton is a senior lecturer in social work at the University of Edinburgh and was formerly a children and families practitioner in Edinburgh and London. He is coauthor of Adoption and Fostering in Scotland and the author of Social Work with Fathers: Positive Practice.Mark Smith is a senior lecturer and head of social work at the University of Edinburgh.
Table of Contents
Commentary - Charles Critcher
Preface - Viviene E. Cree, Gary Clapton & Mark Smith
Part 1: Gender and the Family
Introduction - Viviene E. Cree
1. Women and children first. Contemporary Italian moral panics and the role of the state - Morena Tartari
2. Myths, monsters and legends: negotiating an acceptable working class femininity in a marginalised and demonised Welsh locale - Dawn Mannay
3. Making a moral panic - ‘Feral families’, family violence and welfare reforms in New Zealand: Doing the work of the state? - Liz Beddoe
4. The wrong type of mother: moral panic and teenage parenting - Sally Brown
5. Amoral panic: The fall of the autonomous family and the rise of ‘early intervention’ - Stuart Waiton
Afterword - Maggie Mellon
Part II: Young People, Children and Childhood
Introduction - Gary Clapton
1. Child protection and moral panic - Ian Butler
2. Unearthing Melodrama: Moral Panic Theory and the Enduring Characterisation of Child Trafficking - Joanne Westwood
3. Lost childhood? - Kay Tisdall
4. Internet risk research and child sexual abuse: a misdirected moral panic? - Ethel Quayle
5. The Rotherham Abuse Scandal - Anneke Meyer
Afterword - Mark Hardy
Part III The State, Government and Citizens
Introduction - Viviene E. Cree
1. Children and Internet Pornography: A Moral Panic, a Salvation for Censors and Trojan Horse for Government Colonisation of the Digital Frontier - Jim Greer
2. Internet Radicalisation and the ‘Woolwich Murder’ - David McKendrick
3. Moralising discourse and the dialectical formation of class identities: The social reaction to 'Chavs' in Britain - Elias Le Grand
4. The presence of the absent parent: Troubled families and the England ‘riots’ of 2011 - Steve Kirkwood
5. Patient Safety: A moral panic - William Fear
Afterword - Neil Hume
Part IV: Moral Crusades, Moral Regulation and Morality
Introduction - Mark Smith
1. The Moral Crusade Against Paedophilia - Frank Furedi
2. Animal Welfare, Morals and Faith in the ‘Religious Slaughter’ Debate - David Grumett
3. From genuine to sham marriage: Moral panic and the ‘authenticity’ of relationships - Michaela Benson & Katharine Charsley
4. Integration, Exclusion and the Moral ‘Othering’ of Roma Migrant Communities in Britain - Colin Clark
5. Assisted Dying: Moral Panic or Moral Issue? - Malcolm Payne
Afterword: Heather Lynch