Media-Driven Moral Panic & Anti-Doping Policies

Has the development of anti-doping policy been a ‘moral panic’ response to scandals?

This essay will examine whether the creation of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) was formed due to the moral panic caused by the media. To further examine this, the following points will be investigated: what is the definition of moral panic and what is its role in sport. Additionally, has the creation of WADA achieved addressed the issues it was set-up to tackle.

The starting point for this essay is firstly to examine the term moral panic. This concept was introduced by Stanley Cohen and he defines moral panic as “A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests” (Cohen, 1972: p1). This definition of moral panic still rings true in modern day society. Moral panic can be broken down in 5 stages, 1. Something or someone is defined as a threat to values or interests 2. This threat is depicted in an easily recognisable form by the media 3. There is a rapid build-up of public concern 4. There is a response from authorities or opinion makers 5. The panic recedes or results in social changes. (Thompson, 1998:

p8). As stated by Critcher (2004) “Its crescendo is normally a change in the law or its enforcement.” There is typically a change in the law after a drug scandal becomes public knowledge. By employing these five steps it will aid in determining whether WADA was a knee jerk reaction to a number of ‘moral panics’ and drugs scandals.

The International Olympic Committee's (IOC) attention to doping was heightened by the death of Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen at the 1960 Rome Games (Hunt and Hoberman, 2012), presumed to be linked to amphetamine abuse, although there is insufficient evidence to support this claim. Møller (2005) states that the more likely cause of Jensen’s death would have been the extreme temperatures combined with the consumption
of Roniacol, and high levels of dehydration were significant factors in his death, not the use of amphetamines. Which was reported by the media showing the power of the media to distort information. The IOC Executive board stated after the accident that “the responsible parties ought to be penalised” due its poor judgement of the doping situation at the time along with consequence that it could harm the image of the Olympic movement at the time. (IOC, 1960, p. 3). This statement begins to show that the panic of a drugs scandal needed to be dealt with. Worried that it would spark a medical crisis IOC President Avery Brundage asked for the input of medical professionals. In January 1962 he wrote a letter to a fellow colleague in which he stated, “The problem of ‘doping’ is not a simple one and we must have professional advice on where to draw the line against the practice. This is a difficult problem” (Wrynn, 2004, p. 218).

Later that year an IOC delegate, suggested that drug testing should be put in place at competitions as a way of protecting the Olympic name from ethical questions. “In order to stop press reports about athletes doping”, he argued, ‘blood tests could be taken in suspicious cases’ (Hunt, 2012 p16). This highlights the emerging moral panic created by the media that led officials to attempt to conceal potential cheating by having athletes drug tested, from the outside it probably looked like to IOC was trying to do everything in its power to stop dopers, portraying the Olympics as clean, and that doping was perhaps under control as a doping scandal or death of an athlete would bring a media frenzy as it did when Jensen died.

In the years after Jensen's death, doping was something that was seen as dirty and immoral and it undermined the values of sport, and that it represented the sort of shame commonly associated with ‘deviant’ drug use in society (Dimeo, 2007). The IOC Medical Commission Chair Arthur Porritt wrote in a statement claiming that ‘Doping is an evil – it is morally wrong, physically dangerous, socially degenerate and legally indefensible’ (p. 166). This links in to what Stanley Cohen portrayed when a group or people are made out to be “folk devils”. The public would now associate anyone who doped as a ‘folk devil’ and that they should be punished.

This can be seen in the Lance Armstrong case, Armstrong never actually tested positive due to the elaborate scheme that was going on behind the scenes but due to the French medias’ involvement allegations were made by the media claiming that Armstrong had doped, other riders came forwards and gave their stories, this lead to huge world wide media involvement and the poster boy for world cycling came under fire for doping which he adamantly denied, yet the media frenzy that surrounded Armstrong and cycling at the time was a force to be reckoned with. The media began to report “stories” with over exaggerated “facts” which were not actual facts for example one paper printed how Nike had paid the UCI $500,000 to cover a positive test (Herbert, 2012). There was no hard evidence to support this “fact” yet sent shock waves to the public, there was a public outcry for something to be done to punish the athletes. After all they had cheated the system, themselves, and the public and now had to have their comeuppance. (Rowbottom, 2013)

In many of the doping cases there has ben inadvertent doping, this is when someone takes a supplement or eats something that contains a banned substance but still gets punished as a doper even though it was accidental regardless of how the drugs entered their system. This was the case or Alain Baxter in 2002 when he used a Vicks inhaler for a cold, which made him test positive for a banned substance. This was the case for Igor Walilko he was banned for 2 years at age 12 for a banned substance most likely found in a energy bar that he had eaten earlier in the day. Yet he is still considered a doper this is just one example of the accidental doping that can occur which people are heavily sanction for yet are innocent (don’t know if this is the right place for these, or if they are needed at all)
The IOCs position as a leading anti doping agency was under threat and something had to be done as doping was creating hysteria in the public and the clean cut image of sport was being demolished. In 1999 sports leaders attended a conference to discuss a further anti-doping policy. From this conference it was apparent that the IOC was no longer capable of supporting anti-doping policy on its own it needed an independent organisation. This event was at a time when an increased number of media reports and allegations on doping, with the Festina affair being one of the biggest drugs scandals at the time. Willy Voet was caught by customs officials at the Belgian border carrying a cache of banned drugs meant for the Festina team. The inquiry showed that systematic doping was happening behind the scenes (Voet, 2002). Since then professional cycling has come under scrutiny and been plagued with several drugs scandals (Møller, 2010). Showing the need for further action to be taken to combat the rampant drug use amongst athletes, thus the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) was created.

The effort for a worldwide drugs policy that would produce clean drug free sport is unprecedented (Amos, 2009). This gave the impression that the WADA would have a simple job to undertake, to ensure that a policy was in place to stop athletes from doping. Taking into consideration the different sports, athletes, and the drugs themselves. However this is not the case, WADA was plagued with difficulties from the start. The first issue that WADA faced was to define the term doping. On the surface this seem like an easy task yet when trying write policy that all countries will abide by is incredibly difficult, “to define doping is, if not impossible, at best extremely difficult, and yet every one who takes part in competitive sport or who administers it knows exactly what it means” (Dubin, 1990, pp77-78), this illustrates the complexity of the matter. There are several questions that must answered by WADA and its policy makers to ensure that the policy is clear and easy to understand. The basic issues with it, is that to this day, it still remains unclear as to what the term doping means and why it’s prohibited, there is a lack of clarity that surrounds the definition given by WADA which causes confusion and grey areas which can be exploited. According to WADA its main purpose is to promote health, fairness and equality for athletes worldwide, and ensure a harmonised coordinated effective anti-doping program at national and international level, with regard to detection, deterrence and prevention of doping. WADA has not achieved its goal and it appears that the lack of progression has caused frustration. The testing system is more demanding than ever, and respect for athletes privacy and integrity has faded, top athletes are now approached as cheaters who are yet to be caught and as a consequence competing athletes are not treated equally. The current system benefits the more affluent athletes as they can afford to pay for the most advanced anti-doping expertise, so the level playing field has effectively been abandoned, fairness and equality has never been further away. WADA has not succeeded in harmonising anti-doping efforts across nations, some are more committed to anti doping than others, this can be seen in events that shook the world of Athletics in a recent drugs scandal involving a whole nations state sponsored doping.

Essentially, there was a choice facing any aspiring professional rider, which was to take banned drugs or be at a competitive disadvantage

The failings of anti-doping to ‘level the playing field’ are evident in the number of tests Armstrong and other riders ‘passed’, and in the confidence sports doctors had in planning dosages in such a way as to circumvent the testing system

International Olympic Committee was providing some leadership but focused mainly on the quadrennial Games and lacked any significant influence on professional cycling. The testing system varied across sport and place, such that some competitors were rarely tested and most sports only focused on in-competition testing, allowing dopers free rein to consume banned drugs during their training periods. I

David Walsh who would become famous for making accusations against Lance Armstrong, did little to expose doping.

Walsh writes that he strongly suspected Irishman Sean Kelly in the mid-1980s; he rationalised that he was not really cheating given the wider context of the demands of professional cycling, and in fact it was not until the rumours about Lance Armstrong and small pieces of evidence against him emerged that Walsh took doping seriously as a public interest story.

The testing system was so lax that cyclists felt confident of beating it. There was little by way of out-of-competition testing, and a lack of stringent application of regulations. With the support of professional team managers and unscrupulous doctors, cyclists could use new substances and techniques and stay ahead of the

testers

The earliest accusations were made during the period 1999 – 2005 when he was the world’s leading cyclist. The Sunday Times and L’E´ quipe56 reported in 2004 on the retesting of six samples from 1999 for EPO. However, at that time Armstrong was so confident in his position that he successfully sued the Sunday Times for libel. The motivation behind these media accusations based on such limited evidence that a court of 960 P. Dimeo Downloaded by [University of Stirling Library] at 05:09 12 April 2016 law decided in favour of the cyclist is intriguing. Later accounts by the Sunday Times writer David Walsh suggest that there were so many rumours about Armstrong, and about the lack of post-Festina ‘clean-up’, that a small group of journalists decided to support anti-doping by publicising doping practices.57 Armstrong was at the pinnacle of a doping culture and therefore would be the biggest story. Moreover, stories about less successful cyclists’ doping were not gaining the public’s attention

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09523367.2013.879858?instName=University+of+Stirling