Reaction Opinion and Attitude Themes

Once the initial impact has passed over, the societal reaction to any sudden event, particularly if it is perceived as a dislocation of the social structure or a threat to cherished values, is an attempt to make sense of what happened. People talk less about the event itself and more about the implications of it. This sequence could 

Many of these theories and the themes to be discussed below are based on no more than the sorts of rumours present in mass delusions and serve partly the same function the reduction of ambiguity. Although the rumours, themes and beliefs derive mainly from the mass media, they later encounter reinforcement or resistance in a group setting. The individual is exposed to a 

This description, of course, oversimplifies the communication process by assuming a imitary set of values into which the themes are absorbed like a pool of water absorbing the ripples from a dropped stone. The communication flow is much more complicated, and information is accepted or rejected and finally coded in terms of a pliuality of needs, values, membership and reference groups. 

I will consider some of these differences later at this stage I want to present in ideal-typical categories the opinion and attitude themes about the Mods and Rockers as they appeared in the mass media and other public forms. These themes derive from all the opinion statements by the media (editorials, articles, cartoons), in the media (letters, quotations from speeches, statements, sermons, etc.) and in other public arenas such as parliamentary and council debates. What follows is by no means a catalogue of all types of opinions that were expressed some were too idiosyncratic and bizarre to classify. These are just the themes which emerged with sufficient regularity to justify thinking that they were fairly widespread and would have some effect on public opinion as a whole. 

The themes are classified into three categories (i) Orientation the emotional and intellectual standpoint from which the deviance is evaluated (ii) Images opinions about the nature of the deviants and their behaviour (iii) Causation opinions about the causes of the behaviour. (The set of opinions dealing with solutions or methods of handling the behaviour will be dealt with 

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