An article printed in a newspaper published through news press release states that there was a time when a printed word in the newspaper was held sacrosanct. Now, the competition is driving the media to give a new meaning to the everyday events by twisting the facts. Stephan Cohen?s moral panic model explains the methods used by the media top press release sites to exaggerate and distort the event. Moral panic refers to an exaggerated reaction given by the media or people to a particular event. The overreaction leads to exaggerated the seriousness of the event. The people or the group, social deviants who are targeted by the News Press Release driven media for causing the harm in the society are called folk devils, says Cohen.
Moral panics created by the media news press release backed by interest groups and pressure groups are always looking to create an impact on the social and political institutions.
In the instances such as drug taking, the hippie movement, pro-development lobbies and animal rights, the participants generated heated debate in the society as well as brought about legal and institutional reforms. However in some cases, the long lasting impact of the paid press release distribution reportage was neither felt nor seen. Eg. The introduction of Spinning Jenny or starting point of industrialization when machines were considered a bad omen or evil did not last long.The second aspect of scrutiny is did it establish laws, agencies, groups, movements to further the cause reported by top press release sites or moral panic created? The answer to this question lies on two issues: 1. Social change 2. Creating institutions or laws that will substantially alter the existing socioeconomic balance of the society. In some cases, moral panic created by news press release brings about a social change eg. Drug abuse. It has led to the establishment of new laws and new ways of policing mechanism. The moral panic has also made government agencies react and rejig their style of functioning. The recent example can be of war on terror reported by top press release sites. Its impact on people is huge and government agencies have established a series of institutions and laws to tackle terrorists, who righteously claim to be fighting for their own sectarian causes.
Third, changes in normative and informative structures which comes in due to moral panics created by the online press release distribution media. In this, we need to look at the response given to an incident or an idea by the societal structures. If the moral panic holds on and changes the existing equilibrium then we can safely say moral panic will transform the structures. Example: anti-abortion reportage. While conservative lobbies have created a moral panic about the issue, the people and the authorities at large have not taken given in and the moral panic has failed to rigidify the moral boundaries.
The fourth question is about the transformation that moral panics bring about in the society. It has been observed that moral panic does impact the society in some way or the other. The degree of change may differ from event to event, distributed by top press release sites and it does seek to regulate the human response by repeating the same media news, laws, stories by means of which the social stability is perceived to be disturbed.
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