"The folk devil concept has been well used in subcultural studies, yet its importance might be betterserved by distinguishing among multiple conceptual frames through which it is articulated. In thisarticle, I clarify how folk devils are made possible through the interaction of three concepts used bysociologists to study everyday life. The fi rst is the process of social cognition, where producers andconsumers of news construct and propagate a shared defi nition of who subcultural youths are and whythey should be the object of fear. The second are the semiotic structures of genre and narrative, whichnarrow the interpretive process of producers and receivers alike and sustain discourses that limit howsubcultural youths can be understood in the news. The third has to do with political economy, wherethe ideological features of mass mediated news-making keep the news industry in relative controlof meaning making. Social cognition, semiotics, and the political economy dialectically produce thephenomenon of the subcultural folk devil and support its objective eff ects. I review several studiesof market and state-controlled media societies and note that, in both types, the objective eff ects onyouths are similar and signifi cant. In studying how subcultural youths are framed in the media outputof transitional states and societies, the conceptual value of social cognition, semiotics, and politicaleconomy should be recognised." (author's abstract)
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