Moral Panics On Child Abduction
Moral Panics on Child Abduction
A moral panic is an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society.
Moral panics happen everyday around us and we too give in to these moral panics and of course panic about certain situations, like 911 or the missing Malaysian airlines flight, yet some people still go on with their daily lives simply because they have to.
Child abductions have always been an open doorway for the media to make a moral panic arise. Some research has been done about child abductions and moral panics, especially in the US. When 9-year old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered whilst riding her bike in Arlington, Texas on January 13th 1996 in a parking lot with her brother. Her brother returned to the grandparent’s house, but Amber never did. Her dead, naked body was found days later and she had a slit throat.
The Amber Alert came about because of Amber and the thousands of missing children in America. The Amber Alert is a signal sent out as soon as a child is reported missing. A description of the child is given and when last the child was seen. It is sent over radios, the Internet, it is set up on big screens that are seen around cities. All 50 states in the USA and 100s of cities have the Amber Alert and it has helped to recover many missing children.
This is a prime example of a moral panic. The media has a huge role to play in this because they are the ones that get the information out to the people and they are the ones that have made this a moral panic.
The media uses the 3-point model to bring about a moral panic, especially when it comes to child abductions.
1) When the media gets notice of child abduction they make the coverage as dramatic as they can (even though in these situations it is already dramatic on its own) and therefore the event is signified as a worrying one. When Amber Hagerman was abducted the media had constant coverage on it and her picture was
A moral panic is an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society.
Moral panics happen everyday around us and we too give in to these moral panics and of course panic about certain situations, like 911 or the missing Malaysian airlines flight, yet some people still go on with their daily lives simply because they have to.
Child abductions have always been an open doorway for the media to make a moral panic arise. Some research has been done about child abductions and moral panics, especially in the US. When 9-year old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered whilst riding her bike in Arlington, Texas on January 13th 1996 in a parking lot with her brother. Her brother returned to the grandparent’s house, but Amber never did. Her dead, naked body was found days later and she had a slit throat.
The Amber Alert came about because of Amber and the thousands of missing children in America. The Amber Alert is a signal sent out as soon as a child is reported missing. A description of the child is given and when last the child was seen. It is sent over radios, the Internet, it is set up on big screens that are seen around cities. All 50 states in the USA and 100s of cities have the Amber Alert and it has helped to recover many missing children.
This is a prime example of a moral panic. The media has a huge role to play in this because they are the ones that get the information out to the people and they are the ones that have made this a moral panic.
The media uses the 3-point model to bring about a moral panic, especially when it comes to child abductions.
1) When the media gets notice of child abduction they make the coverage as dramatic as they can (even though in these situations it is already dramatic on its own) and therefore the event is signified as a worrying one. When Amber Hagerman was abducted the media had constant coverage on it and her picture was