Familiar Strangers, Juvenile Panic and the British Press
The Decline of Social Trust
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Beschreibung
This book argues that Britain is gripped by an endemic panic about the position of children in society – which frames them as, alternately, victims and threats. It argues that the press and primary definers, from politicians to the police, are key players in promoting this discourse.
Using a mix of intergenerational focus-groups and analysis of online newspaper discussion-threads, the book demonstrates that, far from being passive consumers of this agenda-setting 'juvenile panic' discourse, ordinary citizens (particularly parents) actively contribute to it – and, in so doing, sustain and reinforce it. A series of interviews with newspaper journalists illuminates the role news media play in fanning the flames of panic, by exposing the commercial drivers conspiring to promote dramatic narratives about children. The book concludes that today's juvenile panic – though far from the first to grip Britain – is a projection of the wide-scale breakdown of social trust between individuals in neoliberal societies.
This book argues that Britain is gripped by an endemic and ongoing panic about the position of children in society – which frames them as, alternately, victims and threats. It argues the press is a key player in promoting this discourse, which is rooted in a wide-scale breakdown in social trust.
Directly addresses key issues and debates of public interest in the UK, including the Jimmy Savile inquiries, criminal prosecutions of elderly paedophiles, and inquiries into allegations of historical abuse by politicians Provides historical context with an overview of the evolution of perceptions and representations of children and childhood down the centuries One of the first empirically based books to analyse the way in which readers contribute and respond to newspaper narratives in posts on discussion threads
Autor*in
James Morrison
Themen in »Familiar Strangers, Juvenile Panic and the British Press«
Moral panic panic juvenile panic juvenile children child risk trust social trust interpersonal trust strangers familiar strangers stranger danger British press press
Stimmen zu »Familiar Strangers, Juvenile Panic and the British Press«
"A great read and an important contribution to our understanding of how anxiety towards young people mutates into the narrative of panic." – Frank Furedi, University of Kent, UK
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"This is a terrific book … More books like this – and a little less postmodernist theorising – would help us to understand more why societies more secure than they have ever been should feel so continuously on edge." (Chas Critcher, Swansea University, UK)
"A great read and an important contribution to our understanding of how anxiety towards young people mutates into the narrative of panic." (Frank Furedi, University of Kent, UK)
()