Cohen's theory

Albert Cohen is known for his sub-cultural theory of delinquent urban gangs, including his influential book 'Delinquent Boys: Culture of the Gang'. Cohen wrote about delinquent gangs and suggested in his theoretical discussion how such gangs attempted to 'replace' society's common norms and values with their own sub-cultures. He achieved this through his study of the media's response to the mods and rockers riots in the 1960's.

Cohen suggests through his theory that a 'moral panic' occurred when these contrasting youth groups developed in society. This 'moral panic' is an exaggerated fear or outrage by the media over an issue that has been blown out of proportion by the media in the first place. These become issues of public concern, about the behaviour of certain groups of people who are seen as a threat to the moral order and stability in society. From this, Cohen argues that 'folk devils' emerged in society to reflect the anxieties running through people at the time. These 'folk devils' are groups targeted by a moral panic and are seen by the media as evil or deviant and a threat to the moral well being of society. In terms of the youth groups at the time, this was the 'mods' and 'rocker's.

The effect of the moral panic is to reinforce hegemony by the media making it clear what values society do not accept. This was enforced through the media exploiting and victimizing this new youth culture which they simply do not understand. With the media representing 'mods' and 'rockers' as monsters, it was believed it would make them realize how they were being rejected by society and therefore would lead to them changing their ways. This shows that when youths try to express themselves in a way that adults have not seen before they try to stop it by showing it as a negative aspect.

Therefore, this would effect the representation of youths as it shows that they are not allowed to express themselves within a different way that society does not see as acceptable. This places a more negative effect on the youths as everything they do out of the 'norm' of society, is seen as bad. From this stereotype of the new youth culture being seen as 'monstrous', the older generation are simply bypassing and dismissing any chance that the new views of teenagers could benefit them further than what society believes they should behave like. In this sense, any good from youths is rejected by the media as they want to create a violent and destructive image of teenagers rather than displaying how some of them are actually good.

By looking at this theory, we are able to see that the media places the blame onto the youths as they see them as an easy target. This causes the moral panic cycle to happen in order to stamp down hard onto anything that youths try to do that is out of the 'norm'. Therefore, the media's response and representation of the new youth's behaviour actually helps to define, communicate and portrays it as a model for outsiders to observe and adopt. So, the moral panic by society represented in the media arguably fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.