Folk Devils, Moral Panics and Messageboards

[Whirlysplat]

The information itself is not hearsay or unsubstantiated. The Church of Scientology has had a large number of issues such as Operation Snow White and other such things. The Chanology project seems to be using the "lethal" side of Scientology in order to play up the shock factor. Such information does come either from former members of the church or reporters or even from government records. While its harder to substantiate the claims of Scientology actually killing people the federal offenses such as fraud and domestic espionage are true.

All in all the campaign seems to be a fairly run of the mill awareness campaign now as compared to the DOS attacks. The only real difference from actual professional campaigns are the lack of resources it has. Had this been a political group I have no doubt that this would have gotten national responses especially if they played up the Scientology kills message.

More and more this thread seems less to do with what Stan Cohen put forth and is more of critique of what anonymous has done. Because really this whole Chanology thing has nothing to do with creating folk devils and stiring up mass mobs to attack people.

No offense, but, you say it's substantiated then you say it's hard to substantiate. You also say they are playing up the "lethal" (unsubstantiated) side of Scientology, which makes much of the information unsubstantiated. Chinese whispers are a key element to creating a moral panic. A mob has been created, the kids have a cause, albeit a ludicrous one. The fat hackers have had some "lulz". Yup, we have a minor moral panic and Scientology is the folk devil. As with all folk devils, it doesn't really impact on most of the mob members lives in any way. Anyway, have a nice evening and try not to worry to much about those evil Scientologists. I know I won't worry about them.

 

[Whirlysplat]

...
Can we just have a Scientology Bashing thread?

lol

 

[Asteroid-Man]

I'll "lawl" you!!! :homer:

 

[Tally Man]

No offense, but, you say it's substantiated then you say it's hard to substantiate. You also say they are playing up the "lethal" (unsubstantiated) side of Scientology, which makes much of the information unsubstantiated. Chinese whispers are a key element to creating a moral panic. A mob has been created, the kids have a cause, albeit a ludicrous one. The fat hackers have had some "lulz". Yup, we have a minor moral panic and Scientology is the folk devil. As with all folk devils, it doesn't really impact on most of the mob members lives in any way. Anyway, have a nice evening and try not to worry to much about those evil Scientologists. I know I won't worry about them.

When I said substantiated I mean the things such as the fraud allegations or any of the court cases they've been involved in. These are things where there is hard evidence of scientologists doing things which were not legal. And then there are the raids on scientologist centers which have uncovered documents which have shown some nasty things. The whole shock angle of scientology kills is the part that I would consider harder to prove but they do have some convincing stuff. But overall the information they are presenting is valid.

What's so interesting about this whole situation is really how a bunch of anonymous people have taken on what many in politics would be considered a repeat player. While you want to compare this to a mob riot scenario I'm much more interested in how this group are taking on an organization that routinely has been able to quash any outbursts against it through legal means or through other ways. This is much more of an interesting grassroots campaign than what I'd consider mob panic. The overall goal of the campaign has definitely shifted from an attempt to destroy scientology to an attempt to spread information about the perceived wrongs of the group. If anything I'd seriously consider looking at this as a way to achieve some sort of public reaction instead of viewing it as some awful way of creating mob violence.

 

[Whirlysplat]

If anything I'd seriously consider looking at this as a way to achieve some sort of public reaction instead of viewing it as some awful way of creating mob violence.

Now I understand. You don't know what a moral panic is..... It's not about mob violence per se...... It's about people being scared of something which is not going to affect them and has been built up into something to scare them, which causes them to react in some way. Mob violence is merely an extreme example.

 

[Tally Man]

Now I understand. You don't know what a moral panic is..... It's not about mob violence per se...... It's about people being scared of something which is not going to affect them and has been built up into something to scare them, which causes them to react in some way. Mob violence is merely an extreme example.

Except that project chanology isn't about people being scared of something its more of people being blatantly offended by actions of scientology such as the use of lawsuits as weapons, the use of domestic espionage, etc and are now trying to inform the public about such tactics. If anything the scientology issue definitely did not build up with anonymous but was caused by a focusing event which was the leaking of the Tom Cruise video. I don't believe project chanology falls anywhere in the ball park of moral panic.

 

[Victarion]

The Hype's full of deviants who would defile dead horses who're lodged in homosexual midgets. What's your point?

 

[Whirlysplat]

Except that project chanology isn't about people being scared of something its more of people being blatantly offended by actions of scientology such as the use of lawsuits as weapons, the use of domestic espionage, etc and are now trying to inform the public about such tactics. If anything the scientology issue definitely did not build up with anonymous but was caused by a focusing event which was the leaking of the Tom Cruise video. I don't believe project chanology falls anywhere in the ball park of moral panic.

Most of the things you mention, are things many other organisations do on far larger scales.

Nestle have killed thousands of babies in some peoples eyes.

http://www.ethics.emory.edu/news/archives/000152.html

Union Carbide have used Lawyers and a small settlement of 470 million dollars to avoid criminal prosecution for negligence for killing 4000 people outright and creating many mutants in subsequent filial generations.

So you see the Tom Cruise events as the focus.... Obviously it was. You don't really understand what a moral panic or a folk devil is, that's obvious from your posts and I agree the term is ambiguous at times, but not in this case. The phrase "Social Hysteria" is fast being used to replace moral panic.
Scientology is a perfect example though of a moral panic, look at the words "moral" and "panic". It is perceived to go against peoples morality and "teh fat hackerz" have panicked people about it. Moral panics are, by their very nature, culturally conservative; their is always going to be a fear among the members of the "normal" culture that some specific subculture or a group identified/influenced by some specific cultural artifact threatens them, it does not take much for another group to fan these flames, usually that is the media and in part that is the situation here. It is more though the means of communication here, which has allowed some kids to be whipped up into this state. They want to belong, so they have formed a subculture of their own and are demonstrating. Scientology is not a threat to most people as most people are not stupid enough to be involved in it.

 

[Tally Man]

Most of the things you mention, are things many other organisations do on far larger scales.

Nestle have killed thousands of babies in some peoples eyes.

http://www.ethics.emory.edu/news/archives/000152.html

Union Carbide have used Lawyers and a small settlement of 470 million dollars to avoid criminal prosecution for negligence for killing 4000 people outright and creating many mutants in subsequent filial generations.

Red herring. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that people are using a movement against a much more powerful player. You may think there are worse things happening now then scientology and I'd agree with that statement but that doesn't mean that it invalidates what the people demonstrating against scientology feel.

So you see the Tom Cruise events as the focus.... Obviously it was. You don't really understand what a moral panic or a folk devil is, that's obvious from your posts and I agree the term is ambiguous at times, but not in this case. The phrase "Social Hysteria" is fast being used to replace moral panic.

Your the one who keeps giving me definitions that I'm going off of here. You say moral panic is something that occurs over time and I counter that this is an issue that happened because of a brief focusing event. You say its because of fear and I counter that this whole thing is not about fear but about the criminal activities of scientology. It fails to meet the criteria you have been bringing up.

Scientology is a perfect example though of a moral panic, look at the words "moral" and "panic". It is perceived to go against peoples morality and "teh fat hackerz" have panicked people about it. Moral panics are, by their very nature, culturally conservative; their is always going to be a fear among the members of the "normal" culture that some specific subculture or a group identified/influenced by some specific cultural artifact threatens them, it does not take much for another group to fan these flames, usually that is the media and in part that is the situation here. It is more though the means of communication here, which has allowed some kids to be whipped up into this state. They want to belong, so they have formed a subculture of their own and are demonstrating. Scientology is not a threat to most people as most people are not stupid enough to be involved in it.

1. Morality is being invoked in this case but unlike what your saying moral panic is not happening. There is no fear involved in this demonstration rather its people offended by scientology going out of there way to show the unethical side of the group.

2. There also is the whole irony of you saying moral panics are culturally conservative when the group doing this is far from culturally acceptable let alone conservative. Once again this is an issue where a much smaller group is going after a large organization with huge amounts of resources.

Honestly the moral panic framework doesn't seem to fit here. Of all the things that should be looked at when it comes to this movement the moral panic comparison is the least important. There are so many more interesting facets like the use of the internet in grassroots movements, the use of anonymity to combat a legal happy foe, etc.

 

[Whirlysplat]

Your the one who keeps giving me definitions that I'm going off of here. You say moral panic is something that occurs over time and I counter that this is an issue that happened because of a brief focusing event. You say its because of fear and I counter that this whole thing is not about fear but about the criminal activities of scientology. It fails to meet the criteria you have been bringing up.

It's "you're", and not really, the fact you don't understand what a moral panic is the problem. You are misreading what it means. The real irony is I am trying to discuss moral panics with someone who does not understand what one is and has no classical sociological understanding... Hey ho.

Red herring. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that people are using a movement against a much more powerful player. You may think there are worse things happening now then scientology and I'd agree with that statement but that doesn't mean that it invalidates what the people demonstrating against scientology feel.

Not really, that's the whole point of a moral panic. "Something" is blown completely out of proportion and the general populous fears it, although, it has no bearing on them. The classic examples in any sociological text are things like the elderly being afraid to go out for fear of being mugged. Children being kept in because parents are worried they might be attacked by paedophiles, this led to demonstrations, although attacks on children had fallen. Again, by saying "Red Herring" in this context you show you are trying to argue something you don't understand. Read Cohen and come back. That's the problem with moral panics, the educated rarely fall for them.