Folk devil

Folk devil is a person or group of people who are portrayed in folklore or the media as outsiders and deviant, and who are blamed for crimes or other sorts of social problems; see also: scapegoat.

The pursuit of folk devils frequently intensifies into a mass movement that is called a moral panic. When a moral panic is in full swing, the folk devils are the subject of loosely organized but pervasive campaigns of hostility through gossip and the spreading of urban legends. The mass media sometimes get in on the act or attempt to create new folk devils in an effort to promote controversy. Sometimes the campaign against the folk devil influences a nation's politics and legislation.

The concept of the folk devil was introduced by sociologist Stanley Cohen in 1972, in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which analysed media controversies concerning Mods and Rockers in the United Kingdom of the 1960s.

Cohen’s research was based on the media storm over a violent clash between two youth subcultures, the mods and the rockers, on a bank holiday on a beach in England, 1964. Though the incident only resulted in some property damage without any serious physical injury to any of the individuals involved, several newspapers published sensationalist articles surrounding the event. Cohen examined articles written about the topic and noted a pattern of distorted facts and misrepresentation, as well as a distinct, simplistic depiction of the respective images of both groups involved in the disturbance. He articulated three stages in the media's reporting on folk devils:

In the case of the mods and rockers, increased police presence the following year on the bank holiday led to another occurrence of violence. Cohen noted that the depiction of mods and rockers as violent, unruly troublemakers actually led in itself to a rise in “deviant behaviour” by the subcultures.

The basic pattern of agitations against folk devils can be seen in the history of witchhunts and similar manias of persecution; the histories of predominately Catholic and Protestant European countries present examples of adherents of the rival Western Christian faith as folk devils; minorities and immigrants have often been seen as folk devils; in the long history of anti-Semitism, which frequently targets Jews with allegations of dark, murderous practices, such as blood libel; or the Roman persecution of Christians that blamed the military reverses suffered by the Roman Empire on the Christians' abandonment of paganism.

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