- Folk devil
A folk devil is a person or group of people who are portrayed in
folklore or the media as outsiders anddeviant , and who are blamed forcrime s or other sorts of social problems. (comparescapegoat )The pursuit of folk devils frequently intensifies into a mass movement that is called a
moral panic . When a moral panic is in full swing, the folk devils are the subject of loosely organized but pervasive campaigns of hostility through gossip and the spreading ofurban legend s. The mass media sometimes get in on the act or attempt to create new folk devils to create controversies (seeTo Catch a Predator ). Sometimes the campaign against the folk devil influences a nation's politics andlegislation .The concept of the folk devil was introduced by sociologist Stanley Cohen in 1972, in his study "
Folk Devils and Moral Panics ", which analysed media controversies concerningMods and Rockers in theUnited Kingdom of the 1950s. The basic pattern of agitations against folk devils can be seen in the history ofwitchhunt s and similar manias of persecution; in many predominatelyProtestant countries, there is history ofanti-Catholicism in which many Catholics were seen as folk devils;minorities andimmigrants have often been seen as folk devils; in the long history ofanti-Semitism , which frequently targetedJew s with allegations of dark, murderous practices, such asblood libel ; or the Romanpersecution of Christians that blamed the military reverses suffered by theRoman Empire on the Christians' abandonment ofpaganism .More recent folk devils have included the McCarthyite persecution of alleged Communists; Satanists and allegations of
Satanic ritual abuse ; blaming video games and violence, Goths, and other youthsubculture s or musical genres for the Columbine massacre;pedophiles ; racial issues from making either certain races a folk devil orracists themselves; people from certain countries (e.g.Mexico ) for problems in the USA,Islam forterrorism .External links
* [http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/online/sociol318/week4.html "Deviance in the Media: The Presentation of Folk Devils, Moral and Synthetic Panics".]
* [http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/hrb9701.html What are 'moral panics'?]
* [http://www.the59club.com/public_html/rocker.html The Spirit of 59 - Hall of Fame]
* [http://www.contextsmagazine.org/content_sample_v6-1.php "Contexts": "Do Video Games Kill?"]
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