Shayla THIEL-STERNDit boek gaat over de media en hoe die 'nieuws' zien, waarbij de nadruk ligt op de beeldvorming over meisjes / vrouwen in de Verenigde Staten.
Doel van de auteur is:
"My belief in human equality and commitment to feminism propel my work here. I hope that by exposing how mass media historically have represented girls and young women in problematic ways, the book might lead media workers to question and change their own newsgathering and storytelling practices."(x)
Over tieners wordt door de media namelijk niet of negatief geschreven en ze worden door de media nooit geïnterviewd / niet gehoord.
Thiel-Stern illustreert aan de hand van vijf historische voorbeelden hoe een morele paniek met een negatieve beeldvorming over meisjes / jonge vrouwen in de wereld werd gezet door bepaalde conservatieve maatschappelijke groepen in samenwerking met de media:
"The historical snapshots include
1. the popularity of dance halls with working-class teen girls in the early 1900s and social reformers’ efforts to reform and outlaw dance halls;
2. the perceived problems associated with teen girls participating in “sports of strife,” or strenuous athletics — specifically, track and field (including a fear of hurting girls’ ability to reproduce in the future and the issue of participants appearing too “masculine” while running);
3. teen girls’ public demonstration of emotion and sexuality in their adulation of Elvis Presley in the mid-1950s and the perceived link between juvenile delinquency (specifically, promiscuity) and enjoying his music;
4. the concern in the late 1970s and early 1980s that teen girls who embraced punk rock music and fashion were not feminine enough and that their physical rebellion (which in the media was tied almost entirely to their appearance in public) could be linked to their own moral decay, cultural deviance, or inability to one day conform to dominant cultural notions of femininity; and
5. teen girls’ widespread use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace since 2004, with special attention paid to issues of sexual predation, sexting, and cyberbullying and to the general fear that girls either show excessive sexual agency or are victimized online." [mijn nadruk] (13)
Het is niet alleen maar irrationele angst die daar speelt. Belangrijk is juist de weloverwogen en in die zin rationele manier waarop morele paniek opgebouwd en in stand gehouden wordt om bepaalde conservatieve morele doelen te bereiken.
Conclusie 1/ 'dance halls' die ik typisch vindt voor morele paniek:
"An overarching media narrative placed the women social reformers at one end of the moral spectrum and the working-class girls who went to dance halls at the other end. In a simplistic telling, the victims were young girls who were helpless in the throes of the dance hall evil; the saviors were women portrayed as crusaders who could help them. This story was very effectively told by providing lengthy quotations, filled with moral fervor, from dance hall reformers and by simply describing the working-class girls who went to the dance halls. Reformers and researchers were allowed to tell the girls’ stories and explain their motivations, but the girls themselves were rendered silent in this coverage. Undoubtedly, they were silenced not only because they were young and female but also because they were of a lower class and sometimes immigrants or children of immigrants." [mijn nadruk] (53-54)
Conclusie wat betreft 2/ atletiek:
"This chapter demonstrates how a social issue related to gender can so quickly turn from progressive to regressive in a short period in part because of the advocacy of savvy moral entrepreneurs and their coverage by the news media. By drawing attention to American female athletes’ lack of femininity just as these athletes were gaining media attention and popularity, the Women’s Division was able to manufacture a crisis related to both gender and youth that effectively upset the status quo (especially with regard to girls’ potential ability to reproduce). The mass media, primarily through newspaper and periodical coverage of the issue as it was hashed out in “official” meetings of various organizations, legitimized the crisis and created a public narrative about girls’ participation in strenuous sports like running. The coverage also validated the dominant understanding of femininity as in binary opposition to masculinity and associated femininity with weakness and victimhood in the thinking that girl athletes must be prevented (by official organizations, parents, and other cultural authorities) from participating in strenuous sports like running to preserve their ability to have children. Moreover, this narrative reified the patriarchal notion that girls and women were intended to remain in the private, domestic sphere rather than enjoy themselves publicly in a manner that defied feminine gendered norms." [mijn nadruk] (89)
Conclusies 3/ de Elvis Presley en 4/ de punk rock rage:
"Of all the moral entrepreneurs who fretted about Elvis Presley’s effect on teenage girls, some members of the Christian clergy certainly were most vocal and active in their opposition. The media, from television to newspapers to magazines, covered the stories of both Baptist preachers and Catholic priests who vehemently protested the existence of Presley, both his live appearances and media coverage.(111-112)
But the African American press took a different approach in its coverage of Elvis Presley.(...) First, none of the stories disparage (and few even note) the teen girls who screamed about Elvis.(114)
In the arguments against teen girls’ adulation of Elvis, it was the middle- and upper-class teen girls who were seemingly losing their minds and virtuousness in public. In this case, it seems that the panic related to class had come true and a force had indeed corrupted daughters of well-heeled families. This intersection of gender and class continues to be prominent in the cases of moral panic in the following two chapters as well.(119)" [mijn nadruk]
"American teen girl punks were seen as out of control and, specifically, out of their families’ control. Parents could not get them to dress in a more conforming manner, for example, or adhere to norms of femininity. This criticism can be connected to class markers as well.(127)
As was the case in the 1950s, a cultural preoccupation with youth becoming corrupted reemerged in the 1980s. (...) Moreover, the crisis can be linked specifically to the mass media landscape of the 1980s.(138)" [mijn nadruk]
Conclusies bij 5/ Internet:
"Most often, contemporary dominant media discourses, particularly those from news media, tend to focus on the Internet as a dangerous space where sexuality runs amok.(...) Much like the media coverage of dance halls in the early 1900s, news-gathering and storytelling devices often emphasize their sexuality and potential victimization. And much like in the case of girls and dance halls more than a century earlier, a panic has ensued partly as a result of the large amounts of media coverage devoted to the topic.(152-153)"
Veel van die verhalen zijn zoals gewoonlijk totaal in strijd met de feiten en jagen alleen maar angst aan.
"As in the case of social reformers against dance halls in the early 1900s and the religious conservatives against punk rock in the 1970s and 1980s, moral entrepreneurs still exist in the digital age. Their motives and agendas must continue to be questioned." [mijn nadruk] (169)
Dit is een geweldig boek met oog voor het seksisme, racisme, en de klassengebondenheid van morele paniek.
Het zijn prachtige historische hoofdstukken die duidelijk maken dat die negatieve beeldvorming van tieners / jonge vrouwen altijd weer dezelfde is. De auteur slaagt er ook echt in die morele paniek die door bepaalde groepen in de wereld werd gezet voelbaar te maken.
Het is steeds weer hetzelfde patroon: de midden- en hogere klassen die met een groot gevoel van superioriteit hun waarden en normen op willen leggen aan de arme groepen in de samenleving in plaats van ervoor te zorgen dat die armoede verdwijnt die zo veel gevolgen heeft voor die arme groepen. Het betreft vaak vrouwen — maar niet alleen — die vrouwen uit arbeidersmilieu de les lezen.
Iemand willen beschermen, — 'voor haar eigen bestwil' ongetwijfeld — is een manipulatieve autoritaire strategie die in de vijf voorbeelden van morele paniek in dit boek helder naar voren komt. De leugenachtige suggestie dat je het niet uit eigenbelang, angst, wantrouwen en conservatisme doet, maar heel lief bent voor een ander en het zo goed bedoelt... Geen wonder dat een halve generatie daartegen in opstand komt.