During moral panics, the media labels some subcultures as abnormal. This is accomplished by exacerbating the way they are portrayed. Since the media shapes people’s reactions, this produces worry and instability. Moral panics can alter public perceptions, procedures, and even laws (Zielińska & Pasamonik, 2021). Media amplification happens as a result of media labeling. This is the process by which media hyperbole drives people to engage in and increase criminal action. Since the media exaggerates some instances, it glorifies criminal action in the eyes of impressionable individuals. The labeling theory focuses on society’s reaction to transgression and diversity. Interactionist sociologists are mainly interested in the consequences of such a reaction.
One of the first in a string of mass shootings that began in the early 2000s and have persisted to this day in the United States was the Columbine High School Massacre. The intriguing aspect of the Columbine moral panic was not the worry that it featured mass killings which many would regard to be a reasonable moral issue in the United States, but rather the guilt that was laid at the feet of goth rockers like Marylin Manson. Even an ABC News 20/20 segment on “The Goth Phenomenon,” which examined how the shooters were fans of Goth music, was dedicated to the topic (Fenderico, 2019). The fear portrayed goth culture as being morally corrupt and lacking any redeeming traits. Later, Michael Moore published a documentary that featured a Manson interview. Moore and Manson criticized the political and media response to the film as a deceptive attempt to place the blame on young culture rather than addressing gun culture and the absence of a social safety net in the United States.
Labeling theory is related to Becker’s work and was developed in response to sociological theories that focused solely on the traits of deviants rather than the forces that governed them, in this case, the mass killings. According to Becker (2018), deviance is the result of external judgments, or labels, that alter the individual’s self-concept and the way others respond to the branded person. The self-fulfilling prophecy is a major component of labeling theory, in which the label correlates to the label in terms of deviant conduct.
References
Fenderico, A. (2019). The subcultural struggle for recognition: Misrecognition of the Goth subculture. South African Journal of Philosophy, 38(2), 203-209. Web.
Becker, H. S. (2018). Labelling theory reconsidered 1. In Deviance and social control (pp. 41-66). Routledge.
Zielińska, I., & Pasamonik, B. (2021). Polarizing moral panics: A theory and its application to the refugee crisis in Poland. Deviant Behavior, 1-15. Web.