Moral Panic Surrounding TikTok & Co.
Australia, the United Kingdom, Indonesia: More and more countries around the world have already introduced a social media ban for children under 16 or are discussing similar regulations. In Germany, too, similar ideas are meeting with widespread approval. Whether parents or teachers—many people share the view that social media can harm children and adolescents, for example by affecting their mental health, well-being, or social relationships, and that a ban is the right measure. But how did this widespread attitude come about? And what role do news media play in this?
Mannheim-based communication scholar Prof. Dr. Sarah Geber is addressing these questions in her new research project, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) with approximately 600,000 euros and will begin in September 2026. Under the title “Moral Panic as a Communicative Frame: Dynamics of Opinion Formation on Social Media Regulation,” the project examines how, for example, newspaper articles or online news contribute to the perception of social media and what consequences this has for attitudes and regulatory preferences in Germany.
This text was translated from German by DeepL.