Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics

JOHN SPRINGHALL is Reader in History at the University of Ulster, Coleraine.

'Springhall's is a minutely researched, provocative and long-overdue study...the book belongs to a vital current of work concerning the neglected overlap of children's literature, print and media history, and popular culture.' - The Lion and the Unicorn 'Dr Springhall has written an excellent book, abounding with references and source lists, which is both informative and entertaining. It should be obligatory reading for anyone who thinks he/she understands the causes of juvenile crime.' - Co-operative News 'Gripped by the notion that there is something profoundly subversive about people enjoying themselves, the Anglo-Saxon middle classes, so Springhall demonstrates, have continued to indulge in regular spasms of wrath over everything from gangster films to 'gangsta rap'. The book has a particularly fascinating section on the relation between the American fear of mass culture and McCarthyism.' - Terry Eagleton, Times Higher Education Supplement '[Springhall's book]...is directed to the historical amnesia which results in wave after wave of moral panics over popular (juvenile) entertainments. This is a very welcome project, and ably accomplished by Springhall, who emerges at the close, shaking the dust of the archives from his sleeves, to conclude that such amnesia hardly equips Western societies 'to withstand the upheavals of the end of the century.' - Michael Pickering, European Journal of Communication 'Entertaining and erudite, Springhall's meticulously evidenced account demonstrates how attacks on the media help to disguise more profound social anxieties...' - Emma Longstaff, University of Cambridge, The Journal of the National Association for Youth Justice

• Acknowledgements Introduction Penny Theatre Panic: Anxiety over Juvenile Working-Class Leisure 'Penny Dreadful' Panic: Their Readers, Publishing and Content 'Penny Dreadful' Panic: Their Scapegoating for Late-Victorian Juvenile Crime Gangster Film Panic: Censoring Hollywood in the 1930s 'Horror Comic' Panic: Campaigning Against Comic Books in the 1940s and 1950s Mass Media Panic: The 1980s and 1990s Conclusions Appendices References Bibliography Index.