Historically, public discourses have used the threats young people appear to pose, as a barometer of social ills and an indicator of society's moral decline (Brannen et al. 1994). Particularly nowadays this tendency is reflected in the increasing ‘evidence’ issued, fuelling public fear and neo-liberal policy reaction (Côté 2002).
The culture of fear and Waiton’s (2002) proposition that we are ‘scared of the kids’.
Historically, public discourses have used the threats young people appear to pose, as a barometer of social ills and an indicator of society's moral decline (Brannen et al. 1994). Particularly nowadays this tendency is reflected in the increasing ‘evidence’ issued, fuelling public fear and neo-liberal policy reaction (Côté 2002).
Alteheid’s (1995) basic argument is that fear in contemporary society has become a dominant public perspective; a way of looking at life. Thus, fear is one of the few shared perspectives in an increasingly individualised society and has become a framework for creating identities and for engaging in social activities (Furedi 1997). Furedi further suggests that the absence of subjectivity in an increasingly objective, rational, bureaucratic and risk conscious society makes us more vulnerable, resulting in a perceived lack of control over our lives and a preoccupation with safety, control and risk prevention. In contrast to earlier times, fear today is seldom perceived as collective insecurity; rather it is a highly individuated and privatised form of fear towards even the most mundane things, generating a society obsessed with surveillance and protection (Hubbard 2003). Similar to this, Furedi (2002) argues that in contemporary society being at risk is a permanent condition existing independently; separately from any specific problem, turning ‘risk’ into an autonomous, omnipresent force. This peaks in the transformation of any human experience into a safety situation.
Attitudes and representations of children and childhood have become increasingly heterogeneous and often contradictory in modern society. However, it seems like there are two main issues dominant in discourse about children today. Firstly, the challenge on how to protect the innocent from the assumed threats of today’s popular culture, the dangerous intentions of strangers and the structural changes in traditional families and parenthood (Muncie et. al 2002). In addition it is argued that the increased consciousness of threats and risks is perceived as a general increase in individual vulnerability, however not arising from specifics threats, such as poverty, but from an inherent human condition (Cohen 2000). Especially children, due to their physical and mental immaturity, are automatically assumed to be vulnerable (Cohen 2002). Yet, the perception of young people being a so called ‘vulnerable group’ is a relatively recently-invented concept, which is strongly enforced by media and non-academic literature, rather than first-hand direct experience (Naphy and Roberts 1997). Supporting this, Moffat et. al (2003) suggests that it’s not personal experiences being responsible for a ‘culture of fear’ rather it is ‘risk communication’ that consistently reinforces peoples risk awareness.
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- Laura Weis Laura Weis (Author), 2011, The culture of fear and Waiton’s (2002) proposition that we are ‘scared of the kids’, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/205920