Moral Panics and Public Protest: Analyzing Public Social Media Responses to the Black Lives Matter Movement

• In Event: Social Movements & Mass Media

Abstract

Over recent decades, historical sociologists and sociologists of deviance have conceptualized the phenomenon of “moral panics,” extreme public sentiment and passion supportive of radical policy agendas, commonly at the detriment of specific groups in society. Moral panics commonly focus attention towards specific events and generate emotions which are harnessed by a movement. Recently, the Black Lives Matter movement, consisting of outspoken public demonstrations against police treatment of Black people, may present the ingredients to incite a moral panic within mainstream American society. Addressing the theoretical perspective of moral panics, this study seeks to do the following. First, collect a set of events which are hypothesized to be catalysts for moral panics. Next, text mine twitter to establish a database of tweets in the US around terms associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. Afterwards, a sentiment score analysis will be used to examine how people felt towards the black lives matter movement during a two month period after these catalysts. Through rigorous statistical analysis, this study examines if there is any relationship between events associated with moral panics and the sentiment towards the movement.

Author

• Sebastian Hoyos-Torres, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY