3. Moral Panic, Securitization, and Myth: Theorizing the Gastro-Panic
3.2. Moral Panic
3.2.3. Defining moral panic
Moral panic refers to an outbreak of concern that arises over the appearance
of objectionable behavior (Cohen 2002: 1) that is perceived as violating or threatening the “status quo”– the current social, political (Patry 2009: 138) or
economic order (Critcher 2011). During a moral panic the division between the normal ‘us’ and deviant ‘them’ becomes more pronounced as claims-makers portray
those allegedly responsible for the undesirable behavior, otherwise known as “folk
devils,” in a negative light (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994b: 30). At the same time,
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behavior from reoccurring or leading to more disastrous consequences (Cohen 2002:
26, 38-9). Ultimately, the collective agreement as to the unacceptability of folk devils’ behavior justifies any measures taken to control and prevent it. This could
include the creation of additional rules and regulations or the withdrawal of “rights
and liberties previously enjoyed” (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994b: 31-2, 27).
The epistemological underpinnings of moral panic derive from a constructivist perspective whereby the threat of a folk devil’s behavior is not
objectively apparent but takes form through the “quality bestowed upon it” (Young
2009: 7, original emphasis). This quality is communicated by “claims-makers” that
includes individuals, interest groups, campaigners, and others who “call attention to a troubling condition” (Best 2011: 47). Claims-makers profess to represent and
promote the needs, preferences, and/or interests of others (Saward 2010: 36-8) in an
attempt to influence policy-makers to take decisions in a particular direction and can
have a decisive impact on policy and practice. Thus, the identification of deviance in
society is generated through a process of social delineation and construction that may
in turn be used as a means of facilitating punishment for said deviance (Cohen
2002). In other words, according to Howard Becker (1963: 9, original emphasis) it is
the claims-makers who “create deviance by making the rules whose infraction
constitutes deviance…” and assigns them to specific individuals or groups who are
thereafter marked as “outsiders.” This is solidified through a process of sensitization
that “entails the reinterpretation of neutral or ambiguous stimuli as potentially or
actually deviant” (Cohen 2002: 59, 62).
Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994b: 33-45) sum up five essential ‘criteria’ that
must be fulfilled in order to identify a moral panic. The first three include concern
77 consensus that something must be done to control it. Within a panic concern and
hostility are directed towards the folk devil and their demarcation and denunciation as an ‘other’ is fundamental (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994b: 29). Through the use of
a number of linguistic methods including symbolization, which shapes stereotypes
associated with them (Cohen 2002: 27), as well as metaphors (Patry 2009: 43) and
myths (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994b: 25), folk devils are portrayed by the
opposing side in a negative light. This negativity is exacerbated by claims-makers
who emphasize the seriousness of their behavior and indicate its unavoidable re-
occurrence if action is not taken. In addition, “disaster” analogies eliciting fatalistic “prophecies of doom” and imaginative allusions as to what might ensue as a result of
the behavior, emotive symbols and fear that the behavior is spreading like a virus
through the whole of society may become evident (Cohen 2002: 19, 26, 38-9, 40,
46).
Consensus in a gastro-panic can be established by analyzing the appearance of “organized, collective action or campaigns on the part of some of the members of
a society to do something about, call attention to, protect, or change (or prevent change in) a given condition…” as well as “the introduction of bills in legislatures to
criminalize or otherwise deal with, the behavior and the individuals supposedly causing the condition” and “public discussion of an issue in the media in the form of
magazine and newspaper articles and television news stories…” (Goode and Ben-
Yehuda 1994a: 152). Where GIs are concerned, a multitude of claims-makers
including producers consortiums, lobby groups, states, the EU, and reflected in the
media are spearheading a campaign to ensure that more is done to protect certain
interests at the global level where the EU is actively advocating for the multilateral
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Similar campaigns and media coverage has emerged in NW countries to call attention to the EU’s actions and institutionalize the preserved use of generic terms.
Two additional elements of disproportionality and volatility are important
criteria of moral panic but require further clarification. First, moral panic is
traditionally defined by its disproportionality or what David et. al. (2011: 221) refer to as the concept’s “built-in hypothesis.” Disproportionality contends that so-called
disruptive behavior is met with a response that is out of proportion to the actual harm
that would be incurred from it (Cohen 2002: xxviii). Because of the slippery terrain
through which the analyst must traverse in order to make hard claims about what
constitutes objective reality in this sense, it has been highly criticized by a number of
scholars as one of the most troublesome aspects of the moral panic concept (Ungar
2001; Garland 2008; Rohloff and Wright 2010; Waddington 1986).
Nevertheless, Goode and Ben Yehuda make a claim for retaining
disproportionality as a constitutive component of moral panic (Goode and Ben-
Yehuda 1994b: 38) and I agree that it should not be abandoned because it is inherent
to the use of moral panic as a critical tool. To do this Rohloff (2011: 635) proposes
the exploration of “empirical cases that do not obviously fit the model of a ‘bad’
‘irrational’, ‘exaggerated and distorted’, ‘panic’” such as climate change (Rohloff
2011; Ungar 2011) or in this case GGIs. In addition, another way to do this is to
focus on Watson’s (2009: 431) conception of disproportionality as related to an
imbalance in the allocation and revocation of rights that often results from a panic,
which asserts that through the process of constructing deviance disproportionality
occurs when:
“(i) it becomes legitimate to withdraw rights from the groups that the dominant construction associates most directly with the deviant behaviour; or (ii) it becomes legitimate to assign extra rights to the groups that the dominant construction
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associates with untainted behaviour. Either way, it is a strategy of social division built upon the asymmetric allocation of rights in favour of the group that successfully comes to define what counts as errant and/or proper behaviour.”
Watson’s account of disproportionality differs from Cohen’s in the sense that it is not
limited to the penalties directed towards folk devils through a withdrawal of rights.
Rather, it emphasizes that a similar imbalance occurs when extra rights are granted
to some groups but not others. With GIs disproportionality occurs through an
imbalance between the rights granted to certain privileged food producing groups
relative to their revocation from others. Thus, the conferral of asymmetric rights
whereby producers of protected foodstuffs are granted rights that producers of
generics are not is an alternative way of ensuring disproportionality.
Furthermore, the volatility of moral panic needs to be addressed. Some
scholars have taken issue with the tendency to use moral panic as a model to
understand singular, short-term, and explosive events without considering the
influence of broader historical and social processes (Rohloff and Wright 2010: 405;
Hunt 2011: 57). In order to overcome this various researchers have attempted to
embed moral panic within ongoing historical and social processes and to avoid a
direct focus on the irrationality of the concept (Hier 2002, 2008, 2011; Critcher
2008; Hunt 2011). As a result, revised conceptualizations of moral panic define it as a “heightened campaign or sense of concern about a particular issue (or set of
issues)…” (Rohloff 2011: 636) that “operate[s] to (re)affirm a sense of existential
security in moments of perceived insecurity” (Hier 2011: 524). These re-
conceptualizations enable me to situate the gastro-panic within the context of the
continuously globalizing agri-food system where heightened concerns over food-
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Moral panic in the case of GIs is evident when considering the heightened
concern over the generic use of protected product names, the conduct of which has come to be deemed as usurpation, counterfeiting, “agropiracy” and even “theft of
culture” (Agdomar 2008: 581, 562) and the hostility directed towards the illegitimate
producers and companies who use abuse them. Nicoletti, Platania, and Privitera (2007: 4) declare that such misuse is an increasingly treacherous “phenomenon of
international proportions, and that besides having serious economic and social
repercussions they jeopardize the regular functioning of the market and deceive
consumers, there is an urgent need for legislative measures, provisions and initiatives to limit their effect…in the international context in which they operate.” Producers
who have potentially utilized geographical labels outside of the region of origin
unnoticed for years are sensitized and targeted as counterfeiters and rule-breakers
who justifiably deserve to have their name rights revoked due to the inauthentic
character of their products, while the producers of genuine, quality origin products
deserve full rights to the use of the name.
It is important to emphasize that moral panic is not simply a one-sided affair. McRobbie (1994: 114) describes how contemporary folk devils may “fight back”
and that various “social movements, pressure groups and other voluntary
organizations” have emerged in their defense. These groups not only represent
opposing viewpoints that challenge the folk devilling process but also play a role “in
actively defining the political agenda” (McRobbie 1994: 115). Consequently, the
gastro-panic is essentially “a battle between cultural representations” (Cohen 2002:
xxxiii) where competing actors make claims and counter-claims in an attempt to
establish dominance over the other through a “discursive strategy of demarcation”
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behavior (Watson 2009: 431). What is interesting in the context of this debate is that
a slew of claims-makers from NW countries including dairy associations and
consortiums, lobby groups, and state officials have emerged to defend the use of
generic cheese terms in global commerce and are actively taking steps to influence
international negotiations and agreements. These actors re-frame the debate through
a countering discourse of gastro-panic that effectively reverses the folk devilling
process through constructing EU attempts to restrict the use of generic product
names as a threat projected to have serious consequences and through purifying
producers of generic products of any wrong-doing.
Following the clarification of disproportionality, volatility, and the
countering processes of gastro-panic, the various criteria and examples from the GGI
debate are outlined in Table 3.1 (Adapted from Goode and Ben Yehuda 1994b: 33-
45; Watson 2009: 431; Rohloff 2011: 636; Hier 2011: 524).
Table 3.1: Moral Panic Criteria and the GGI Debate Moral Panic
Indicators Description
Concern Heightened in relation to certain group behaviors and its supposed consequences.
e.g. EU concern over generic use/abuse of particular food names versus NW concern over EU attempts to restrict generic use.
Hostility Toward particular group or category engaging in behavior perceived to be responsible for threat.
e.g. EU hostility towards ‘counterfeiting’ producers versus NW hostility towards ‘aggressive’ behavior of EU.
Consensus Agreement by involved actors that threat is real, serious, caused by behavior of group members and that something must be done to control it. Varies, could be articulated by small or large groups.
e.g. Demonstrated on both sides through the appearance of discourse manifested in the language of various campaigns, lobby groups, dairy consortiums and associations, states and supranational bodies, and media discussion.
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Disproportionality Occurs through an imbalance between the rights conferred to certain groups relative to their revocation from other groups. e.g. EU calls for exclusive use rights to be granted
asymmetrically to European producers versus NW appeals to unfairness in order to reverse it.
Volatility Temporary campaign that operates to (re)affirm a sense of existential security in moments of perceived insecurity.
Concern can be long-lasting but peak at various moments over time, then disappear or become institutionalized in social movement organizations, legislation etc.
e.g. Movement to institutionalize protection for or
preservation of use of food names, either GI or generic, within the context of continuously globalizing dairy systems.