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Boundary-creating processes and the social construction of threat.

Article Excerpt
Looking at the key theoretical approaches to the social construction of threat in the sociology of deviance and in political science, this article addresses the way boundaries between groups are created in different contexts. Comparison between UK media coverage of terrorists and football hooligans reveals that this is a rational process that draws boundaries on the basis of the position of the target group in the political field rather than the objective seriousness of the threat. KEYWORDS: press discourses, social enemies, terrorism, football hooliganism, UK

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The rapid development from the 1960s onward of the constructionist school stirred up controversies among scholars in social sciences. Key questions as to whether it was possible to draw a line between the subjective and objective parts of social reality or as to whether it was possible to distinguish between subjective and (allegedly) objectified representations of social reality revealed deep divisions between positivists and constructionists that, among other things, led to radically different definitions of social problems.

While the tenants of the objectivist model consider social problems as "a product of dysfunctions, social disorganization, role and value conflicts, and a violation of norms," (1) the defenders of the constructionist thesis (2) assume that what qualifies as a "problem" for a given society at a given moment is the outcome of "long-standing and day-to-day constructions made by persons and groups." (3) Hence, it depends less on its objective features than on the way people prioritize and perceive collective values and interests to assess problems. This is not meant to deny the objective seriousness of social conditions but rather to stress that the subjective definition of these conditions is to a large measure independent of their seriousness. Not all harmful social conditions will be seen as social problems, while some relatively benign ones will. (4) Far from being objective realities, social problems tell us then what is righteous and useful or, on the contrary, what is evil and dangerous; they show who has the power to define these values and to impose punishment on their potential adversaries; they uncover whose interests are advanced when social problems are brought to public awareness. In short, they bring to light an ongoing process of asserting power through the distinction of right from wrong and the subsequent delimiting of the social reality. In this respect, not only is the construction of social enemies important in political terms but it is also thought to be essential to the very defining of the mainstream society and to the further maintenance of its cohesion. (5) These two functions are so strongly interrelated that it is not possible anymore to address the political aspect of the process while ignoring its social one. In other words, the political benefits that may result from the introduction of hard coercive policies against allegedly threatening social figures should not be dissociated from the fact that "civilized" societies keep on confirming their own sense of unitary consensus when creating outcasts. (6)

While acknowledging the role played by various social actors in constructing social problems, constructionists have frequently sought to highlight the important place held by the media in the framing of these problems. (7) Far from playing a mere informational role, the media are thought to be actively involved in the shaping of the public debate on social issues, as part of the circle of primary and secondary definers and claims makers out of which public problems are socially constructed. Therefore, the media coverage of social problems is seen as "a socially constructed representation of reality and as an arena of problems construction in which struggles to designate and define public problems are waged." (8) Media discourses on controversial social issues are thus integrated into a process of social construction of public problems that, on the one hand, involves various institutions and social groups struggling to promote their own values and interests and, on the other hand, obtains its optimum effects when it rests upon the mutual reinforcement of public discourses and policies.

This shared orientation toward social reality should not however shift our attention away from the fact that constructionist approaches remain loosely circumscribed in a potentially boundless theoretical frame. Going back to Husserl's phenomenology, while borrowing elements from historical and anthropological studies on "othering" processes, (9) studies on the social construction of threat have been developed in many epistemological fields, ranging from criminology and sociology to political science and linguistics. In seeking to analyze the social processes and the power relations that allow structuring and establishing specific socially threatening figures, (10) they rested upon various theoretical frames, going from deviance studies to social movements and collective behavior studies, to be lately associated with Ulrich Beck's concept of risk society. (11) This diversity makes assessing the methods used to analyze processes related to the social construction of threat particularly difficult.

But it is still possible to assess the way the key elements of these processes have been addressed by constructionists. An overview of the answers given as to who are the actors involved in the process, what are their objectives, how do they proceed, and who is targeted would allow us to have a comprehensive image of the issue and probably to uncover blind spots of the overall approach.

Explaining the Construction of Social Problems

While the construction of social problems has been approached from a range of disciplines, the key explanatory models come mainly from studies on moral panics. In his pioneer work on the English working-class youth, Stanley Cohen describes the different stages of the development of a moral panic to study the interactions thus established among the target group, moral and political entrepreneurs, the media, and the people. (12) Bearing the marks of Howard Becker's and David Matza's analyses of deviance, (13) Cohen addresses the role of the media in labelling deviant groups and manufacturing crime waves, focusing on the establishment and further expansion of a media-orchestrated deviance-amplification process and on its subsequent impact on public responses. Thus creating new categories of social outcasts is believed to be the reaction of a community that, being embedded in deep social and political crises, seeks to confirm its values and reinforce its internal cohesion.

Cohen's moral-panic model has been frequently lauded for its contribution to critical criminology and deviance studies. But it has also been severely criticized for...

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