“Are We Insane ?”. The “Video Nasty” Moral Panic

The events which led to the imposition of state video censorship in the UK in 1984 are frequently described as constituting a moral panic. However, with the exception of Critcher (2003) these events have never actually been analysed in the light of moral panic theory, and this article attempts this task in much greater detail than Critcher, whose concerns go beyond this particular panic about videos. The article shows how concerns about the new medium of home video were first expressed in the press in May 1982, and details the first prosecutions of videos under the Obscene Publications Act in August of that year. The arti­cle explains the role of moral entrepreneurs such as Mary Whitehouse and politicians of all parties in helping to create this particular panic, but its main focus is on the role played by the national press in amplifying the panic and creating a signification spiral in which the alleged threat posed by the so-called “video nasties” was constantly escalated, as well as converged with other apparent threats to the social order. The result was an increasingly strident campaign for firm legislative measures to be taken. The article argues that the events which led to the passing of the Video Recordings Act (1984) need to be understood as a process of communication involving a deviance-defining elite of politicians, moral entrepreneurs and censorious newspapers, a process from which the public itself was largely absent, constant press invocations of “public opinion” notwithstanding