Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Responsive image

Moral panic

For the album, see Moral Panic (album).

Witch-hunting is a historical example of mass behavior potentially fueled by moral panic. 1555 German print.

A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society.[1][2][3] It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue",[4] usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers.[1][4] Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community.[5]

Stanley Cohen, who developed the term, states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests".[6] While the issues identified may be real, the claims "exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm".[7] Moral panics are now studied in sociology and criminology, media studies, and cultural studies.[2][8] It is often academically considered irrational (see Cohen's model of moral panic, below).

Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory pedophiles[9][10][11] and belief in ritual abuse of women and children by Satanic cults.[12] Some moral panics can become embedded in standard political discourse,[2] which include concepts such as the Red Scare,[13] racism,[14][page needed] and terrorism.[15]

It differs from mass hysteria, which is closer to a psychological illness rather than a sociological phenomenon.[16]

  1. ^ a b Crossman, Ashley. "Understanding How Moral Panic Threatens Freedom". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  2. ^ a b c Walsh, James P (November 2020). "Social media and moral panics: Assessing the effects of technological change on societal reaction". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 23 (6): 840–859. doi:10.1177/1367877920912257. PMC 7201200.
  3. ^ Jones, Marsha (1999). Mass media. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0333672068.
  4. ^ a b Scott, John (2014). A Dictionary of Sociology (Fourth ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 492. ISBN 978-0-19-968358-1.
  5. ^ Pedneault, Amelie (February 2019). Child Abuse and Neglect: Forensic Issues in Evidence, Impact and Management (1st ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Academic Press. pp. 419–433. ISBN 978-0128153444.
  6. ^ Cohen 2011, p. 1.
  7. ^ Cohen 2011, p. [page needed].
  8. ^ Critcher, Chas (2017). "Moral Panics". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.155. ISBN 978-0-19-026407-9.
  9. ^ Hesselink-Louw, Anne; Olivier, Karen (1 October 2001). "A criminological analysis of crimes against disabled children: the adult male sexual offender". Child Abuse Research in South Africa. 2 (2): 15–20.
  10. ^ Lancaster, Roger (2011). Sex Panic and the Punitive State. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. 4, 33–34, 76–79. ISBN 978-0520262065.
  11. ^ Extein, Andrew (25 October 2013). "Fear the Bogeyman: Sex Offender Panic on Halloween". Huffington Post. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  12. ^ Goode & Ben-Yehuda 2009, pp. 57–65.
  13. ^ Rodwell, Grant (2017). Moral Panics and School Educational Policy. Routledge Research in Education Policy and Politics. London, England: Taylor & Francis. p. 188. ISBN 978-1351627818. Retrieved 29 March 2019. As with the "reds under the beds" moral panics of the post-World War II decades, moral panics have often been manufactured for political purposes [...].
  14. ^ McWhorter, John H. (2021). Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin. ISBN 978-0-593-42307-3. OCLC 1260690368. Partial preview at Google Books.
  15. ^ Brysk, Alison; Meade, Everard; Shafir, Gershon (2013). "1: Introduction: Constructing national and global insecurity". In Shafir, Gershon; Meade, Everard; Aceves, William J. (eds.). Lessons and Legacies of the War On Terror: From moral panic to permanent war. Routledge Critical Terrorism Studies. London: Routledge. p. 1. ISBN 978-1136188749. Retrieved 29 March 2019. The contributors examine the social, cultural, and political drivers of the war on terror through the framework of a 'political moral panic.'
  16. ^ "Carol Morley: 'Mass hysteria is a powerful group activity'". The Guardian. 29 March 2015. Retrieved 2 June 2021.

Previous Page Next Page






ذعر أخلاقي Arabic Pànic moral Catalan Morální panika Czech Moralsk panik Danish Moralische Panik German Morala paniko EO Pánico moral Spanish Moraalne paanika ET پانیک اخلاقی FA Moraalipaniikki Finnish

Responsive image

Responsive image