NASW Social Work Talks - EP95: Identifying Moral Panic

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Michael H. Eversman, PhD, MSW, is the author of "Identifying Moral Panic: The Discourse of Fear in Social Policy" from NASW Press. This book uses historic and contemporary moral panic episodes — periods of exaggerated public fear triggered by high-profile incidents linked to feared social groups — to show how political discourse and stereotyping lead to policies that maintain social inequalities. Eversman emphasizes social work's social justice mission and the need to stay vigilant amid structural inequalities rooted in labeling and otherism, enabling readers to recognize the patterns of moral panic discourse in our culture.  Dr. Eversman is associate professor in the Department of Social Work at Rutgers University–Newark. You can purchase "Identifying Moral Panic" at https://naswpress.org/product/53667/identifying-moral-panic.

This episode is brought to you by One Circle Foundation. From the National Association of Social Workers, this is Social Work Talks, and I'm your host, Elizabeth Lamott. Today, we are going to be speaking with Dr. Michael Eversman about his very interesting new book, Identifying Moral Panic. I'm holding it up for our viewers. Dr. Eversman is an associate professor at the Department of Social Work of Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. His areas of research interest include substance abuse, illicit drug policies, alternatives to the war on drugs, and all things social work education.

In addition, Dr. Eversman has more than 10 years of experience as a licensed independent clinical social worker providing mental health and substance abuse services to a variety of client populations. So Dr. Eversman, welcome to Social Work Talks. Thank you for joining us today. So I thought that we would start off identifying and defining moral panic for our listeners and our viewers. And if you could also tell us about how you came to write this very interesting book,

which I really enjoyed. Sure. So we talk about a moral panic as a societal reaction to a social problem, a social condition of concern. Sometimes it can be the mere presence of an individual, but the reaction to the problem is out of whack with the true threat of the problem. But the problem often represents something very symbolic, something very important to people in a certain sense. And so it gets blown out of whack. The media covers the problem in a way that's highly sensationalized, highly stylized. A sort of consensus begins to happen that something has

to be done. Oftentimes something is done. For my purpose, writing this book was talking about social policies that are enacted during these periods. The policies that are enacted don't necessarily address the problem because the problem really doesn't exist. It exists, but it's kind of up to you. And then the problem kind of just goes away. The flurry of reaction, the overreaction to this condition just kind of fades away and we kind of move on. But the concern for when they do happen is that they leave, in a way, a legacy of policies that often don't address the problem and often create its own kind of social justice issues, which is another important aspect of moral pattern. So, I mean, I feel the kind of the gist of it, you know, in a sense, there's a

little more to it than that. Well, we're going to get into the more to it, but as a social worker and an associate professor of social work, how did you become interested in this topic? So, my colleague, Dr. Jason Bird, he had actually been familiar with moral panic theory, and so being in his office and seeing the books, I think is really kind of how it happened. We were both teaching contemporary policy class here, and it just became clear to me and clear to us, because we would eventually collaborate, that there were a lot of uses for this theory, bringing it to social work, bringing it to how we understand and teach about social problems, social policy.

So we just kind of devised it from there. I think we did a presentation. Then we eventually co-authored an article that was published in Social Work that kind of brought it to Social Work, Moral Panic. And then from that article, I wrote this book. So it was kind of a culmination of a series of things. And in the book, you very early on mentioned

Stan Cohen's book, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which was published in 1972. Can you talk a bit about that book and also how our understanding of moral panic has evolved and changed since the term really became known or coined in the 70s? Sure. So Stan Cohen was a criminologist, a sociologist in the UK, and he wrote that book. He really sort of fleshed out and formalized our understanding of moral panic. And he was using case study of youth subcultures that were happening in post-World War II England, youth subcultures. But his work is obviously a cornerstone.

He also did the work of Jack Young and later on Stuart Paul and colleagues. This is all in the 70s. They really sort of formalized this theory. Yeah, so second question. So anyway, how has it changed? I think the biggest change in the 50 years, really, since this theory has been formalized, is the information landscape that we live in today. I mean, back then, to get out the news story, you know, there were only so many channels, especially with television, only so many channels that could be carried out on. So it was easier to kind of have a consensus viewpoint or not that many diverging viewpoints on a particular issue.

Today, the media landscape being what it is today, I don't even think they could have envisioned it 50 years ago. So it's really hard to sustain people's attention to worry about one thing, let alone have a consensus viewpoint that it's even a problem, really. And this is sort of the world we live in now at that. So that would be the biggest thing. But I have to say, other than that, I do think the theory itself has aged well. I like to say it's timeless and it's timely. So yeah. I agree with you. And as you mentioned the media, the book is very well thought out and very well organized. And I believe chapter three focuses on media itself. And so I was hoping that you could speak to how the media and media literacy is a factor in understanding moral panic and really what our listeners should be thinking about to that end. Yeah, you know, I mean, the media literacy concerns about it is really sort of an outgrowth of studying moral panics and seeing how they work because much of it is based on false information and flat out untruths.

So it's just crucial. You know, I wrote that chapter in the media a year and a half ago or so, and it feels like with each day, it becomes more and more out of date because the media are such an evolving, fast-moving thing. I don't think it's out of date just yet, but you get my point. There's just so much that moves with it. You know, I mean, media literacy is just a tough one because it almost goes against, I think, where a lot of us aren't right now with things,

which is just kind of confirmation bias, you know, finding what we want to believe to be true rather than willing to subject ourselves to the possibility that we're wrong or even just hearing or tolerating a point of view that differs from ours. That really is where I would start with media literacy and then being exposed to various different viewpoints. But I think that's a tough one. And I honestly, I think it's, I don't want to overstate it. But anyway, media literacy, extremely important. And we see it played out now in our political system, for sure. We saw, you know, echo changers. Right. You know, based on false information. And so I don't know that that's going anywhere. And then you start to get into issues of free speech, you know, and what speech should we ban? Should we not tolerate? And we have a long history of, you know, sort of being all over with that. We would agree that speech is bad and we should ban it. But who's to say what hate speech is, except in the very clearest of circumstances. Well, that's an interesting topic for social workers. And of course, many of our listeners are social workers. And it leads me to how you concluded Chapter 3. I want to read a quotation from the end of Chapter 3 that has really stayed with me.

you write, social workers must attempt to counter harmful dynamics by redirecting a critical focus on the social forces that cause and contribute to the divisiveness. Furthermore, social workers must in a responsible manner utilize the power of the internet and its many platforms as a tool of advocacy and a true megaphone for the masses, because only in this way can the promises of the internet be truly fulfilled. So I would say that's a very well said call to action for us social workers. And I'd like you to elaborate on that, even with some ideas of how we can most effectively do that. Well, I think there's two parts to my response. The first one is the device And I think that, you know, that goes beyond us as professionals. I'm sure most all of us have someone in our personal lives, maybe even a family member who whose political viewpoints or even just their viewpoints toward reality are different from ours, distorted from ours.

Many, many people have lost relationships, particularly really since the 2016 election. And we say, well, we thought we knew this person and they think that they believe that. Well, then I just don't know you. So, I mean, I think it's beyond the professional. It gets there too. But it certainly, I think, begins with us personally. And that is a division, as Abe Lincoln said, a house divided against itself, you know, it cannot stand. And so how do we sort of, maybe we hate the message, but if we want to also hate the messenger, where are we going to end up in this country in this time of polarization unless we turn down the heat? So that really, I mean, whatever way we can kind of turn down the temperature on the better day. So is part of really breaking down moral panic attempting to, as you say, turn down the temperature by collecting clearer facts and having deeper media literacy then? Is that what you mean? Yeah, I mean, turning down the temperature on the heated rhetoric, you know, trying to remember the things that we have in common, trying to remember the things that bond us and, you know, trying to forge a pathway where maybe, you know, our political system can be a little bit more functional. You know, our legislators will actually do the work that we need to do. Interesting thing about moral panic is that, you know, it holds that a social problem is exaggerated, but that's not to say that the social problem doesn't occur, isn't real. And I think the key point there is the kernel of truth issue. So there are very, very real problems, you know, social problems that we need to address, but we just have so much dysfunction there.

And the book is just a litany of these historic examples where the problem has, you know, been blown out of proportion. That's the gist of the panic. And, yeah, it sort of focuses our direction away from things that we should be worried about. You know, and then surprisingly, we end up living with things that we should be worried about. So we focus too much on things that really aren't that threatening. So I really like the way you're describing this, Dr. Eversman. And it leads me to confess to you that I think I do have, as a mom, a moral panic about guns and specifically guns in schools.

And this comes up in your book, but I still think I have that moral panic. And I'm just wondering if you can help me with that. as a part of this conversation. Help me out here. Cause I am, I am morally panicked. Maybe I'm morally outraged, not morally panicked, but it feels like moral panic. Yeah. You know there's really, I would never tell a parent not to worry about their child. I would never tell a parent that they're wrong to worry about their child. So I certainly can and won't do that. And I think also when we're talking about something like our feelings toward a child you know rationality goes out the window and and so these sorts of discussions operate in the rational plane

but that's not where you as a concerned mother is coming coming from you're not coming from there you're coming from so yeah i really i that's the first thing i would say to you but um you know here we go statistically let me just first say it's hard to say that gun violence it is to say school shootings that they are in moral panic um when they happen it's very hard to you know tell you know because they're extremely um tragic scary for parents with children it's extremely scary um just robs us of so much of things that we take for granted as far as safety the schools of all places elementary schools i mean we're talking about babies here for goodness sake getting sorted with, with weapons of any explanation at all. Well, yeah, right. That too. Um, but you

know, the, the fact of the matter is, and people don't know this, but a shooting is the least likely way, believe it or not, that a student is to die at school. The statistically and historically, they're more likely to die in an auto-related accident than they are to be shot in a mass shooting incident. You know, again, that's of cold comfort to worried parents, but this is on the rational plane. On the rational plane, we know that schools, apples to apples, are the safest places for a child to be during the day than even at home. And, you know, most threats to the welfare and well-being of children come from the home, come from people that they know. So, you know, the chances of that kind of a thing happening are small, are still small,

thankfully, but it doesn't feel that way when they happen. And it certainly doesn't feel that way, you know, even if it doesn't happen to you directly to watch these news stories and to read about these tragedies. So it's just important to say these two things really kind of coexist. I think policy should be made based on rational. That's just my opinion. Often it isn't. But other than that, Elizabeth, I really don't know what I could say to you or what I would even try to say to you being a parent of a child. I think you're explaining it. I think you're saying, if I'm following, that two things can be true at the same time and that I need to educate myself, I need to be an advocate. And at the same time, I need to be morally outraged rather than morally

panicked. Well, sure. The solution to the issue with guns is the guns themselves, though. That came up twice in my book, A, with our youth school shootings, and then B, when we talk about mental illness and the mentally ill, which is in the news again now, certainly in New York, and with crime being up, a fear. And so who should be able to get a gun in this country? Who should not be able to get a gun? How do guns keep us safe? Do they keep us safe?

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the importance of claims making and claims makers as it relates to moral panic. Can you speak to that? Claims making would relate to how the social problem is being talked about and how the social problem is being understood and when you couple that with this this new you know media environment that we live in where almost anything goes um it it just it makes the idea of claims making even more important and so some people with higher visibility high name recognition their claims are more likely to get attention versus someone who's not but we we've seen any numerous examples of blatantly, patently false claims being accepted as truth. And, you know, I think that one of the most scary things about this

when we drill down into moral panic and understanding what it says about social problems and claims making is that it's not the validity of a claim that's so significant as whether or not that claim is believed with or without validity. And we've seen this all the time, obviously. And so when you couple that with social media, in particular, landscape that we're living now, it's extremely important, which goes back, by the way, to media literacy and just, you know, trying to sort of understand what we're hearing and what we believe in. And, of course, this was a question mark and a big topic during the COVID-19 pandemic, which, depending on who you ask, is still very much a factor. Your book was published this year, so I'm assuming you wrote it in part during the pandemic and during the lockdown. Is that correct?

Actually, yes, but the end of the pandemic hadn't yet been written, as you say, the process of being written at that time. So I don't know to what extent I really delved into it too much in the book. Do you think that the issues swirling around the pandemic are connected to amoral panic or how would you or would you not connect to them? You know, certainly I think that the way it was covered in the media was sensationalized. Some would even say alarmist relative to its true threat. Some would say, and they'd be right, that some of the reactions were overkill with just shutting everything down, the economy, the schools in particular. I think even the policymakers that took that took COVID seriously now after the fact have sort of been made to vote. maybe we could have done some things differently. So we did have, in that sense, certain elements

of it. We also, by the way, saw hostility during COVID, which is an important attribute of moral panic with the anti-Asian hysteria, the violence that we saw toward Asians, blame being heaped upon the Asian community, it being referred to as come flu by the former president. So we had certain things in place that we would say, okay, well, sure, COVID. But, you know, again, with moral panic, we're talking about a social problem with a kernel of truth. A million dead due to COVID is definitely more than a kernel of truth in my book, you know. So I would not characterize it as moral panic. It doesn't matter. Someone else would say, well, yes, it is. And they could argue that it is. I wouldn't. But anytime you've got the media

sensationalizing things, you're always going to think, okay, is this moral panic? Is this really, are they really being honest? Is this exaggeration? That makes it more difficult to say either way. Another topic, and one of the, I really enjoyed the whole book, but a chapter that I found very compelling was the chapter on immigration. And I would like to read a quotation from that chapter that has really stayed with me. It's page 74 of your book, in case you're curious. You write, indeed, the great irony of U.S. immigration policy that is usually overlooked in the public and political debates is that truly restricting immigration, even the undocumented, would threaten our economy and weaken our innovative edge.

because undocumented men fill a disproportionate share of jobs in key consumer service industries and sectors, and foreign STEM workers drive a large share of our new patents, emerging technologies, and entrepreneurial startups. So let's just for a moment touch on chapter six and immigration in the lens of identifying moral panic. Sure. I mean, you know, the whole story of immigration is really the story of us as a country, you know, who and then from there, who is a true American, who's worthy of being a true American, who belongs, who doesn't belong. But we also see with that story that immigration has often been used as a tool, a political tool, all the way back to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the Federalists back in maybe 1801, the election. So it's always been there. And it's unfortunately that the history of many of our federal immigration, well, obviously, they're all federal immigration policies, have been one of exclusion and one sort of cloak in racial superiority. The most blatant was the one, the Immigration International Act of 1924, which created the quota system, which is based on admitting people to ensure the demographics would stay the way they were based on the 1890 census.

So, you know, so on and so forth. There's just so much, though, about immigration. And we see it today. Still, immigrants are very, very easily labeled, folk-devil, blamed for social problems. And immigration does pose real policy problems. We haven't had any kind of comprehensive immigration reform in this country since the Reagan administration. And it's a bipartisan issue that neither party really seems to want to touch. You mentioned that immigrants are folk deviled, and that's an interesting concept that comes from Stan Cohen's book. Can you define folk devils for our listeners and our viewers, please? Yeah, well, I just want to clarify, immigrants are prone to being folk devils. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. We love the story of the successful outsider, successful newcomer, successful immigrant. But the folk devils are basically the groups that get blamed for the social problem of the moral panic. So either it's usually a behavior that they're engaging in, or maybe just the mere presence of them themselves.

But the folk devils are the group that gets blamed, and they are the threatening group. And this is, again, an important legacy that Moral Panic is even going to wake because it makes these folk devil groups who are already marginalized historically even more so. So as we zoom back a bit, I want to mention that many of our listeners are social workers. Many of them are also members of NASW. Those who aren't, I invite you to join NASW. and NASW members have the option of joining specialty practice sections. So I come to this podcast as a member of the private practice specialty practice section, where I'm very focused, not just on private practice, but on clinical current topics and issues. So it's

meaningful to me that you are both an associate professor, you're an author, and you're an experienced LICSW clinician. And I was hoping you could speak to our listeners about how your experience in private practice informed your writing the book, and perhaps also how moral panic comes up when practicing social work as a private practitioner or as a clinician. so i mean the time in my life when i was still working in private practice was years when i was years before so the evolution of moral panic in my career came came later so i couldn't tell you that i really kind of can relate it to practice with my students it you know moral panic and social policy in general relate to how they understand the macro level dynamics the

environments, social environments, social context in which our clients often exist and often face in terms of unjust systems, for example, and how that can be a presenting problem clinically. But, you know, I really don't think I talk too much about moral panic. I teach methods and policy, so I really, teaching-wise, have a hand in both, well, all three, really, micro, mezzo, and macro. But the moral panic, I basically keep in the policy discussions class. I've never really thought about it. Not to say it's not, and I'm sure something has been written about it, but it's not really something that I apply in my teachings about practice. Maybe that could be your next book, because I think there's something there. I do. And

I'll be thinking about it, and I hope that you'll be thinking about it as well. I do think it comes up. And I think it is related to different angles, helping our clients in how they distinguish between anxiety, moral outrage, and moral panic. And I'll say as a clinician that the media is affecting my clients and it's affecting the clients of my supervisees. And I think maybe you have another book here. I'm just going to toss that out there. I'm sure people who teach policy practice address some of these things. People who teach social psychology would get into some of these things.

Anything that's going to try to help understand the madness of crowds, if you will. I'm sure it's already being done. Maybe they're just calling it something else. But, yeah, it's in terms of, you know, how the media make us feel and how social media impact people. Yeah, you know, that seems to be the condition of the world that we live in today. You know, I mean, I sit in classes with students who I love, but I see I'm competing against a device which I really can't, you know, compete against. And, you know, my classes are good. That has nothing to do with it. It's just, you know, it's just a different environment in many, many, many ways.

And, you know, the research is this is being studied, obviously, because we don't know the long term impact. Certainly all the early returns say that it's not good. Certainly social media for young girls in particular, we know we know that they're targeted. I mean, the Wall Street Journal did a whole series about that. So, you know, getting people's eyes glued to their devices, it's part of the business model. It's a feature. It's not a bug.

It is designed, the devices are designed to be that way. And we are all competing with them. As a clinician, I compete with them with my clients. I'll text my daughters because they're college students and they'll text me back and say, I'm in class. Can I answer later? And I think, why are you answering at all? Um, so Dr. Eversman, what would you say is the most important message that you would

like readers to take from your book? Well, um, well, I guess basically that any discussion about social problems and social policies is not just about that problem or a policy solution. It's often about, like we've been talking today, emotions, things that are symbiotically important to us and just some sort of larger, larger, almost intangible aspect. That's certainly one of it. Certainly that these periods of panic, they happen. Certainly, as we discussed, it's different now than when it was first advised. But it happened. It will happen again. You know, right now, I think we could see a moral panic when it comes to issues of transgenderism.

and you know it's a reminder that people like simplicity there's nothing more simple than the gender binary and when you start to talk about something like that in ways that's not either or it's difficult for people and they kind of you know lash out and start to see these kinds of policies that are happening across the country so um i guess the message would be as i said earlier it's timely and it's time less in the sense a lot of history that we could understand just by looking at things like this. So I thank you for writing the book. And I want to call attention to the dedication at the beginning of your book. In the beginning of the book, you write, this book is dedicated to those among us who consider themselves to be late bloomers,

underdogs, or those who have simply been doubted, dismissed, and told we couldn't achieve something. that I have written and completed this book is proof that we all have an unexpected accomplishment within us. So don't give up on yours. That's beautiful. Could you just share some of the backstory of that for our listeners and our viewers, please? Just that growing up, I was one of those people who was kind of told that they couldn't or they wouldn't do whatever so you know if for me it was about trying to maybe prove a certain thing and prove some people wrong here it is there's certainly people i think who you know and i think a lot of us have that in our lives i don't think i'm any different than anybody else in that sense

but um you know perhaps for me i mean it's just something that kind of stuck with me and so for anybody you know that's that's how i mean it don't give up i guess it's my way of saying if i can write this book you know you can do whatever it is you're struggling to do too that you want to do too that that's really what I meant by that but thank you for picking that out of all the things to discuss in the book I don't think I saw that one coming Elizabeth well I was very taken with it and I do think that social work is such an important profession and people go into it for very deliberate reasons, many times with deep, deep professional integrity. So for people to get to read your book and start out with that message and then challenge themselves through the

experience of the different topics of the chapters, it's just a very valuable and enlightening experience. Is there anything else you want to share? We are almost out of time, but is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners? You know, I, interestingly, along my acknowledgement section, you know, I included my pets in there who I consider family. You know, this book is definitely written in a social work voice. So your closing words, I think, are important. But, you know, I mean, I think we covered a lot. Yes. Well, thank you for joining social work talks, I want to mention that there is more information about Dr. Eversman and about how to purchase his book and how to read his book and take a test in order to have

CEUs through NASW. That's in the show notes section of our website. And again, Dr. Eversman, thank you for joining us today. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us.

We look forward to seeing you next episode.