Teen parties in Malta : a case study on youth moral panic

Abstract

Moral panic and youth have had a strong connection for a long time. The former refers to situations in which a subject is considered as a threat to the common values in a particular society. Such a subject is extensively covered in the media, analysed by people in authority and experts in the particular field and discussed by society in general. Most often, this sparks a disproportional and volatile reaction, leading to the introduction or amendments of rules and regulations. Such a process depends on social constructs and social types which are shaped by the representations of the particular subject, making the latter the ‘folk devils’ of the specific context (Cohen, 2011). Moral panic, as explained by Stanley Cohen, consists of elements and processes, and it develops in stages (Ibid.). Based on content analysis of print and online news-media and television programmes, together with five indepth elite interviews, the study explores the representations and reactions towards youth during the hype over teen parties in Malta between 2011 and 2013. Moral panic theory is utilised as a conceptual tool to explore the underlying social processes in the transmission of such representations. The moral panic over teen parties started with the identification of a ‘problem’ which was fuelled by the media and resulted in new control methods. A double-picture of youth was channelled through the media, people in authority, experts and society, whereby youth were perceived as passively vulnerable and intrinsically deviant. Youth were criticised and labelled (mostly by adults) as a generation with a wary future, compared to a “golden age” of previous generations (Beaumont, 1996 in Thompson, 1998, p.4). As a result, youth became the folk devils of the time and youth culture was converged with other deviant behaviour. The intention of the study is to take a wider view of the processes and constructions beneath moral panic rather than to trivialise such a phenomenon.