Moral Panics

Throughout the course of history, the ever-increasing ubiquity of the media landscape has increased the prevalence of moral panics. In a society where bad news sells, the media exacerbates and fuels moral panics in order to gain public interest and therefore viewership. With increased viewership, comes a larger market and thus an opportunity for advertisers to reach a wider audience of consumers.
In Australia, politicians condemn refugees, as they perceive them as a threat to society’s values.

‘A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order’ (Stanley, 1972). Moral panics are said to occur when ‘a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerge to become defined

as a threat to societal values and interests’ (Cohen, 1972, p. 9). Furthermore, researchers define those who initiative and drive the panics as ‘moral entrepreneurs’ and those who threaten society’s moral standards as ‘folk devils’. Stanley highlights how these ‘threats’ to society are blown out of proportion and distorted by the news media. Although moral panics have been around since print media evolved, nowadays’ technology acts to amplify the panic on a much larger scale.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s ‘Dilemma’ advertisements were released to raise awareness for refugees in a positive light. The global campaign was released in Switzerland (UNHCR headquarters location) and targets people of all ages, religions and ethnicities worldwide. The campaign involves a series of extremely powerful posters featuring conflicted refugees in the background and rhetorical questions directed at the audience in the foreground. This advert actively places the audience in the shoes of the asylum seekers – confronting them with the seemingly unbearable task of checking one of the two options. The audience is left to decide between the unthinkable options of ‘facing death in a war zone?’ or ‘fleeing and leaving loved ones behind?’ and ‘stay and risk your lives in the conflict?’ or ‘flee and risk kidnap, rape, torture or worse?’ – here Australians are given just a small insight of the kinds of traumatic and moral dilemmas that refugees face day to day. This advert further demonstrates the role and influence of advertising in the news media as it acts to appeal to Australians, making them feel a sense of compassion towards refugees and asylum seekers rather than a distanced disgust encouraged by news and media. The simplicity of asking ‘what would you do?’ draws the audience in and invites them to reflect on themselves in that situation. These shock tactics aim to raise awareness and support for refugees making them feel the weight of responsibility and an urge to do something about it.
In many ways this advert humanizes refugees, giving a voice to the voiceless and attempts to show Australians refugees are much more than the ‘burden’ the government presents them as. This advert/campaign actively challenges moral panics as it acts to debunk and expose the common misconceptions and negative connotations that refugees are so often presented and associated with as a result of the media.

The representation of asylum seekers, particularly through advertising and media platforms, has fundamentally contributed to government policy change and the public’s perceptions of refugees seeking asylum in Australia. The main issue that has risen as a result of refugee portrayal is that the media contradicts Australia’s multiculturalism and cultural diversity ideals by promoting this refugee moral panic that serves to vilify refugees.
Who is responsible for today’s damaged image of asylum seekers? Whilst many people would blame the government for initiating the moral panic and cultivating fear, others would deem mainstream journalism as the main perpetrator.
This is mainly due to the fact that the media is the only means through which most
Australians are exposed to refugees - due to the restrictions on detention center accessibility imposed by the government. Ironically as the government continues to tighten these restrictions, they also intensify the moral panic as they are creating more room for concentrated (and thus manipulated) depictions of refugees. These concentrated depiction of events involving refugees create a bias in the supposed ‘open’ and ‘fair’ discussion of the mainstream public sphere. The extreme concentration of media ownership in Australia is also partially to blame for the misrepresentation of refugees, as the saturated content is much more easily controlled and distributed.

A prime example of this moral panic in Australia in regards to refugees is the children overboard affair.

In the lead up to a 2001 federal election, the Howard government released allegations that asylum seekers were ‘throwing’ children overboard as a stunt to be rescued and granted access to Australia. (Rawat, 2013)
However no one was ever thrown overboard, in actuality they were on board a sinking vessel. Originally the circulating ‘Children Overboard’ image was supposed to show the navy assisting the affected families to safety but was later manipulated by the government to reflect the danger and threats of asylum seekers, who were willing to throw children and women overboard in a ploy to seek asylum. This is a prime example that sees the government as the ‘moral entrepreneurs’ attempting to conjure up fear through employed fear-mongering tactics. Corderoy stresses how easily people are influenced by the media they consume, and thus how hard it is to resist adopting similar views to the ‘political parties who take extreme positions on those issues tend to gain popularity’ (Corderoy, 2012). Print media later exacerbated the image of the children overboard and the negative attitude towards refugees by publishing the photo with fabricated headlines and versions of the event that made refugees out to be nasty ‘criminals’ and ‘queue jumpers’, ‘This type of media coverage actually makes people more scared of, and more opposed to, refugees’ (Corderoy, 2012). This demonstrates and acts as a historical reminder of how easily the same event/medium can be received, manipulated and thus misconstrued in different ways. The ‘Children Overboard Affair’ emphasises print media’s role in the formation of discourses involving refugees and asylum seekers and the subsequent propagated racial anxiety created as a result of

this.

In recent years in Australia, the issue of refugees and asylum seekers has particularly caught the media’s interest, and has subsequently shaped opportunistic political discourses and thus influenced many electoral outcomes. The refugee moral panic in Australia has exaggerated and sensationalised the criminality of refugees and asylum seekers. Corderoy urges society to look deeper than the newspaper headlines themselves from now on as it ‘might not just be reflecting your fear, it could be shaping it’ (Corderoy, 2012). The role of journalism historically is to ‘provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self governing’ (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2001 p. 12) this is also reflected in the MEAA journalism code of ethics. However as ‘the ideal of journalism is a quest for truth’ (Schaefer, 2015), is it unethical for a journalist to overplay moral panics and shape content to reflect advertisements? In this digital age, advertising has a huge influence on the content and structure of print news media and serves to connect product manufactures with markets (from the print media readership). Ever since news has become a commodity, the line between advertising and journalism has blurred as a result of rapid commercialisation of the news media. Consequently, as the role of advertising in journalism increases, the facticity and objectivity of news decreases.