Over the 20 (almost 25) years that make up this history, over 400 articles about raves were published in newspapers read by Edmontonians. Analysis of these articles will constitute a chapter of the history of raves in Edmonton.
Actually, it is appropriate to examine the treatment of raves by newspapers at three distinct points in the Edmonton rave chronology, indicated on the graph below.
The graph plots the total number of articles over time, 1992-2015. The graph shows a steady rate of articles about raves in Edmonton newspapers, with a dramatic increases in the region "A" and smaller increases in the regions "B" and "C."
The region labelled "A" on the graph starts approximately April 1, 2000, with a set of articles about the party "Ascension." and continues until the Rave Demonstration on the steps of city hall (June 24, 2001). This is the period of the city's first attempts to regulate raves. The 3:00 AM curfew and the so-called "Cindarella clause" make their first appearances here. I am calling this surge in newspaper coverage "Moral Panic #1" (for lack of a better term) It is centered more or less on the issue of risks associated with use of ecstasy by persons, especially teens, at raves.
Region "B" starts approximately January 1, 2004 with the article, "Smith wants all-night clubs to shut down earlier," which ran on the Journal's front page. This is the city's second attempt to regulate raves happens, again with a 3:00 AM curfew, ending in February 2004 with the defeat of city council's proposed regulations. I am calling this "Moral Panic #1a," an echo of the first moral panic.
Region "C" starts in late January 2012, with the article "Rules for all-night dances go before councillors this week," and continues through til after the "Elements" music festival which took place April 27 and 28, 2012. This is "Moral Panic #2." During this period, city council is reviewing rules governing the sale of alcohol at all night events including a particular event by promotion company Boodang that was to break all records in terms of attendance. About the same time, a batch of ecstasy pills tainted with PMMA leads to a cluster of overdoses in Alberta and BC. The newspaper discourse changes as well and now includes sexual assault as one of the risks of all night dance parties, with a particular emphasis on the risk of sexual assault facilitated by "date rape drugs."
Mainstream newspapers are a “discursive space where political agendas are constituted and reconfigured" -- so says Sean P. Hier (author of "Risks, Raves, and the Ecstasy Panic"), drawing on moral panic research by McRobbie and Thornton (1995); Hay (1996); Knight (1998a, 1998b); and Carroll and Ramer, (1999). David Garland, writing about moral panic in 2008, notes that the American government has used moralizing to control 'sin' such as alcohol, drugs and sex -- "a build-up of governmental regulation and nationwide enforcement that could never have been achieved by normal political processes."
One question I seek to answer in my book: Did Edmonton police, city councillors and other members of the establishment use "moral panic" as a political tool to enable them to regulate, securitize, and even ban raves? I put the term in quotation marks because of critical issues surrounding thoughtless use of that term. Something happened in the periods A, B, and C. The question is: what?
In this blog, the E-town Rave History Papers, you will find all the newspaper articles used as reference for the book E-town: A History of Rave in Edmonton by yours truly, JPX. These articles also form part of the E-town Rave History Project.
Search using Labels at the right of the page, or use the Blog Archive to jump to a specific point in the narrative. Browse using the "Older" and "Newer" links.
This information is compiled by JPX as a labour of love!!
