FEATURED AUTHOR

Amanda Jane Rohloff

Wellcome Trust Fellow
Brunel University

Dr. Rohloff (1982-2012) completed her PhD on climate change, which synthesized the work of Norbert Elias with the concept of moral panic. At the time of her untimely passing, Dr. Rohloff was a postdoc researcher at Brunel University working in the areas of epilepsy, alcohol, and end of life care. She was also a lecturer in sociology and media and communications. Her book, Climate Change, Moral Panics and Civilization, is a lasting legacy to her quality as a researcher and social scientist.

Subjects: Anthropology - Soc Sci, Criminology and Criminal Justice

Biography

Dr. Rohloff's first university studies began in New Zealand, in psychology and biological sciences. While still maintaining a strong interest in both these areas, she soon switched her formal education to anthropology, criminology and sociology. In 2012, she completed a PhD on climate change, which synthesized the work of Norbert Elias with the concept of moral panic. She was a postdoc researcher at Brunel University, working on three research projects – in the areas of epilepsy, alcohol, and end of life care – while also teaching on a variety of modules in both sociology and media and communications. In addition, she the Director of the Moral Panic Research Network, co-convenor of the Research Group on Problematized Consumption and Identity, and co-convenor of the BSA Alcohol Study Group.

Her research interests related to four central, overlapping areas: the sociology of the body, health and illness; the sociology of the environment; the sociology of deviance; and sociological theory. Within these areas, she was particularly interested in: epilepsy and the sociology of medicine; alcohol, consumption, and addiction; the management of emotions and identity; climate change and living green; moral panics; the history of sociology; and figurational sociology. She published extensively in the areas of climate change, moral panics, and civilization.

Education

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Alcohol studies; climate change; crime and deviance; criminology; epilepsy; figurational sociology; history of alcohol and drug use; media and popular culture; moral panic; moral regulation; punishment and social control; risk; science and technology; social processes; social theory; sociology of the environment; sociology of health and illness; sociology of knowledge; sociology of medicine; sociology of science; consumption.

Personal Interests

Family, animals, nature, the environment, nature, mushroom foraging, travel, hockey, reading, research, academia

Books

Featured Title

Articles

Moral panics over the environment? 'Climate crisis' and the moral panics model

Published: Jan 01, 2013 by The Ashgate Research Companion to Moral Panics
Authors: Amanda Rohloff

This chapter utilizes the example of climate change to explore some of the core assumptions about moral panics and in doing so will begin to answer the question as to whether or not there can be moral panics about the environment. Through an analysis of various sources of empirical data, this chapter illustrates that climate change is constructed within a strong moral basis.

Moral panics as civilizing and decivilizing processes? A comparative discussion

Published: Jan 01, 2013 by Política y Sociedade, 50(2): 483-500
Authors: Amanda Rohloff

This paper draws from a variety of case study examples of ‘moral panic analyses’, in combination with figurational analyses of the same topics, to comparatively explore the variant forms ‘moral panics’ take and how they develop, thereby analysing the multiple forms civilising processes can take.

The idea of moral panic – ten dimensions of dispute

Published: Dec 16, 2011 by Crime, Media Culture, 7(3): 215-228
Authors: David Matthew, Amanda Rohloff, Jason Hughes

This paper explores the open and contested concept of moral panic over its 40-year history, exploring the contributions made by the concept’s key originators, as well as contemporary researchers. While most moral panic researchers are critical, humanist, interpretivist, interventionist and qualitative, this paper highlights ten areas of productive dispute within and around the meaning of moral panic theory’s ‘common sense’.

Extending the Concept of Moral Panic: Elias, Climate Change and Civilization

Published: Aug 16, 2011 by Sociology, 45(4): 634-649
Authors: Amanda Rohloff

Combining the theories and concepts of Norbert Elias with the empirical example of climate change, this article aims to extend and develop the concept of moral panic. The focus of the analysis is on the documentary An Inconvenient Truth — an exemplar of a more general trend in popular culture regarding the moralization and individual regulation of climate change. In the final sections of the article, Al Gore’s short-term campaign is related to more long-term social processes.

Shifting the focus? Moral panics as civilizing and decimalizing processes

Published: Jun 14, 2011 by Moral Panic and the Politics of Anxiety
Authors: Amanda Rohloff, Sarah Wright

Drawing from the work of Norbert Elias and the figurational approach to research, this chapter builds on the original concept of moral panic and on the contributions of Alan Hunt (2003, 1999, Chapter 4 this volume), Sean Hier (2002a, 2008) and Chas Critcher (2009). My aim is to assess some of the main the assumptions of moral panic research and, specifically, to conceptualize volatile panic episodes in relation to long-term, wider social processes.

Moral Panic and Social Theory: Beyond the Heuristic

Published: Apr 22, 2010 by Current Sociology, 58(3): 403-419
Authors: Amanda Rohloff, Sarah Wright

Chas Critcher has conceptualized moral panic as a heuristic device, or ‘ideal type’. Explicating two current critical contributions — the first, drawing from the sociologies of governance and risk; the second, from the process/figurational sociology of Norbert Elias — this article highlights the necessity for the continuous theoretical development of the moral panic concept and how such development is essential to overcome some of the substantial problems with moral panic research.

Moral panics as decivilising processes: Towards an Eliasian approach

Published: Aug 08, 2008 by New Zealand Sociology, 23(1): 66-76.
Authors: Amanda Rohloff

Applying the ideas of Norbert Elias to the sociology of moral panics, this article argues that moral panics are processes of decivilization; occurring where civilizing processes break down and decivilizing trends become dominant. Examining the definitions of Goode & Ben-Yehuda (1994) and Stanley Cohen (2002), the article compares key characteristics of moral panics with some of the symptoms of decivilizing processes as proposed by Stephen Mennell (1990).