Amoral panic, also called asocial panic, is a widespread feeling offear that someevil person or thing threatens thevalues, interests, or well-being of acommunity orsociety.[1][2][3] It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue",[4] usually elicited bymoral entrepreneurs andsensationalmass media coverage, and exacerbated bypoliticians andlawmakers.[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 insociology andcriminology,media studies, andcultural 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 widespreadabduction of children by predatorypedophiles[9][10][11] and belief inritual abuse of women and children by Satanic cults.[12] Some moral panics can become embedded in standardpolitical discourse,[2] which include concepts such as theRed Scare[13] andterrorism.[14]
It differs frommass hysteria, which is closer to apsychological illness rather than asociological phenomenon.[15]
Though the termmoral panic was used in 1830 by a religious magazine regarding a sermon,[16][17] it was used in a way that completely differs from its modernsocial science application. The phrase was used again in 1831, with an intent that is possibly closer to its modern use.[18]
Though not using the termmoral panic,Marshall McLuhan, in his 1964 bookUnderstanding Media,[19] articulated the concept academically in describing the effects of media.[20]
As asocial theory orsociological concept, the concept was first developed in theUnited Kingdom byStanley Cohen, who introduced the phrasemoral panic in a 1967–1969 PhD thesis that became the basis for his 1972 bookFolk Devils and Moral Panics.[21] In the book, Cohen describes the reaction among the British public tothe rivalry between the "mod" and "rocker" youthsubcultures of the 1960s and 1970s. Cohen's initial development of the concept was for the purpose of analyzing the definition of and social reaction to these subcultures as asocial problem.[1][8][22]
According to Cohen, a moral panic occurs when a "condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat tosocietal values and interests."[6] To Cohen, those who start the panic after fearing a threat to prevailing social orcultural values are 'moral entrepreneurs', while those who supposedly threatensocial order have been described as 'folk devils'.
In the early 1990s,Erich Goode andNachman Ben-Yehuda produced an "attributional" model that placed more emphasis on strict definition than cultural processes.[12][8]
Many sociologists have pointed out the differences between definitions of amoral panic as described by American versus British sociologists.[23] Kenneth Thompson claimed that American sociologists tended to emphasizepsychological factors, while the British portrayed "moral panics" ascrises of capitalism.[24][25]
British criminologistJock Young used the term in hisparticipant observation study of drug consumption inPorthmadog, Wales, between 1967 and 1969.[26] InPolicing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order (1978),[27] MarxistStuart Hall and his colleagues studied the public reaction to the phenomenon ofmugging and the perception that it had recently been imported from American culture into the UK. Employing Cohen's definition ofmoral panic, Hall and colleagues theorized that the "rising crime rate equation" performs an ideological function relating tosocial control.Crime statistics, in Hall's view, are often manipulated for political and economic purposes; moral panics could thereby be ignited to create public support for the need to "police the crisis".[27]
| Author | Stanley Cohen |
|---|---|
| Published |
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First to name the phenomenon,Stanley Cohen investigated a series of "moral panics" in his 1972 bookFolk Devils and Moral Panics.[7] In the book, Cohen describes the reaction among the British public tothe seaside rivalry between the "mod" and "rocker" youthsubcultures of the 1960s and 1970s. In a moral panic, Cohen says, "the untypical is made typical".[7]
Cohen's initial development of the concept was for the purpose of analyzing the definition of and social reaction to these subcultures as asocial problem. He was interested in demonstrating how agents of social control amplifieddeviance, in that they potentially damaged theidentities of those labeled as "deviant" and invited them to embrace deviant identities and behavior.[8] According to Cohen, these groups were labelled as being outside the central core values ofconsensual society and as posing a threat to both the values of society and society itself, hence the termfolk devils.[28]
Setting out to test his hypotheses on mods and rockers, Cohen ended up in a rather different place: he discovered a pattern of construction and reaction with greater foothold than mods and rockers – the moral panic. He thereby identified five sequential stages of moral panic.[29]
Characterizing the reactions to the mod and rocker conflict, he identified four key agents in moral panics:mass media,moral entrepreneurs, the culture ofsocial control, andthe public.[1][8][22]
In a more recent edition ofFolk Devils and Moral Panics, Cohen suggested that the termpanic in itself connotesirrationality and a lack of control. Cohen maintained thatpanic is a suitable term when used as an extended metaphor.[7]
Setting out to test his hypotheses on mods and rockers, Cohen discovered a pattern of construction and reaction with greater foothold than mods and rockers – the moral panic.[29]
According to Cohen, there are five sequential stages in the construction of a moral panic:[1][7][22]
Cohen observed further:[29]
Sometimes the object of the panic is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight. Sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten, except in folk-lore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy or even in the way the society conceives itself.
Characterizing the reactions to the mod and rocker conflict, Cohen identified four key agents in moral panics:mass media,moral entrepreneurs, the culture ofsocial control, andthe public.[1][8][22]
The concept of "moral panic" has also been linked to certain assumptions about themass media.[7] The mass media have become important players in the dissemination of moral indignation, even when they do not appear to be consciously engaged insensationalism or inmuckraking. Simply reporting a subset of factual statements without contextual nuance can be enough to generate concern, anxiety, or panic.[7] Themedia plays a crucial part in delivering social reaction. The state where a social orcommunity group reacts negatively and in an extreme or irrational manner to unexpected or unforeseen changes in their expected socialstatus quo.
Cohen stated that the mass media is the primary source of the public's knowledge about deviance and social problems. He further argued that moral panic gives rise to the folk devil by labelling actions and people.[7]Christian Joppke furthers the importance of media as he notes shifts in public attention "can trigger the decline of movements and fuel the rise of others."[31]
According to Cohen, the media appear in any or all three roles in moral panic dramas:[7]
In their 1994 bookMoral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance,[12]Erich Goode andNachman Ben-Yehuda take asocial constructionist approach to moral panics, challenging the assumption thatsociology is able to define, measure, explain, and amelioratesocial problems.[8]
Reviewing empirical studies in the social constructionist perspective, Goode and Ben-Yehuda produced an "attributional" model that identifies essential characteristics and placed more emphasis on strict definition than cultural processes.[3][8][12] They arrived at five defining "elements", or "criteria", of a moral panic:[32]
Goode and Ben-Yehuda also examined three competing explanations of moral panics:[8][35]
Similarly, writing about theBlue Whale Challenge and theMomo Challenge as examples of moral panics,Benjamin Radford listed themes that he commonly observed in modern versions of these phenomena:[36]
In over 40 years of extensive study, researchers have identified several general clusters of topics that help describe the way in which moral panics operate and the impact they have.[7][8] Some of the more common clusters identified are:child abuse, drugs and alcohol,immigration,media technologies, andstreet crime.
Exceptional cases ofphysical orsexual abuse against children have driven policies based onchild protection, regardless of their frequency or contradicting evidence from experts. While discoveries aboutpedophilia in the priesthood and among celebrities has somewhat altered the original notion of pedophiles beingcomplete strangers, their presence in and around the family is hardly acknowledged.[37][38][39]
Substances used for pleasure such asalcohol and otherdrugs are popularly subject to legal action and criminalization due to their alleged harms to the health of those who partake in them or general order on the streets. Recent examples includemethamphetamine,mephedrone, anddesigner drugs.[8]
A series of moral panic is likely to recur whenever humans migrate to a foreign location to live alongside the native or indigenous population, particularly if the newcomers are of a differentskin color orreligion. These immigrants may be accused of: bringing alien cultures and refusing to integrate with the mainstream culture; putting strain onwelfare,education, andhousing systems; and excessive involvement in crime.[8]
The advent of any newmedium of communication produces anxieties among those who deem themselves as protectors of childhood and culture. Their fears are often based on a lack of knowledge as to the actual capacities or usage of the medium.Moralizing organizations, such as those motivated by religion, commonly advocatecensorship, while parents remain concerned.[8][40][41]
According tomedia studies professor Kirsten Drotner:[42]
[E]very time a newmass medium has entered the social scene, it has spurred public debates on social and cultural norms, debates that serve to reflect, negotiate and possibly revise these very norms.… In some cases, debate of a new medium brings about – indeed changes into – heated, emotional reactions … what may be defined as amedia panic.
Recent manifestations of this kind of development includecyberbullying andsexting.[8]
A central concern of modern mass media has been interpersonal crime. When new types or patterns of crime emerge, coverage expands considerably, especially when said crime involves increased violence or the use of weapons. Sustaining the idea that crime is out of control, this keeps prevalent the fear of being randomly attacked on the street by violent young men.[8][43]
Researchers have considered a number of historical and current events to meet the criteria set out by Stanley Cohen.
The brief success of theKnow-Nothing Party in the US during the 1850s can be understood as resulting from a moral panic over Irish Catholic immigration dating back to the 1840s, particularly as it related to religion, politics, and jobs.[31]Nativist criticism of immigrants fromCatholic nations centered upon the control of thePope over church members. The concern regarding the social threat led the Know-Nothing Party in the1856 presidential election to win 21.5% of the vote. The quick decline in political success for the Know-Nothing Party as a result of a decline in concern for the perceived social threat is an indicative feature of the movements situated in moral panic.[44]
During the years 1919 to 1920, followed by the late 1940s to the 1950s, the United States had a moral panic overcommunism and feared being attacked by theSoviet Union.[45][13][14] In the late 1940s and the 1950s, a period now known as theMcCarthy Era, SenatorJoseph McCarthy used his power as a senator to conduct awitch hunt for communists he claimed had infiltrated all levels of American society, including Hollywood, theState Department, and the armed forces.[46] When he began, he held little influence or respect within the Senate,[47] but he exploited Americans' fears of communism (and Congress' desire to not lose re-election) to rise to prominence and keep the hunt going in spite of an increasingly apparent lack of evidence, often accusing those who dared oppose him of being communists themselves.[48][49][50]
Over the years, there has been concern of various types of new music causing spiritual or otherwisemoral corruption to younger generations,[51] often called "the devil's music". While the types of music popularly labeled as such has changed with time, along with the intended meaning of the term, this basic factor of the moral panic has remained constant. It could thus be argued that this is really a series of smaller moral panics that fall under a larger umbrella. While most notable in the United States, other countries such asRomania[52] have seen exposure to or promotion of the idea as well.
Blues was one of the first music genres to receive this label, mainly due to a perception that it incited violence and other poor behavior.[53] In the early 20th century, the blues was considered disreputable, especially as white audiences began listening to the blues during the 1920s.[54]
Jazz was another early receiver of the label. At the time, traditionalists considered jazz to contribute to the breakdown of morality.[55] Despite the veiled attacks on blues and jazz as "negro music" often going hand-in-hand with other attacks on the genres, urban middle-class African Americans perceived jazz as "devil's music", and agreed with the beliefs that jazz's improvised rhythms and sounds were promoting promiscuity.[56]
Some have speculated that the rock phase of the panic in the 1970s and 1980s contributed to the popularity of thesatanic ritual abuse alleged moral panic in the 1980s.[51][57]
In the United States, substantial limits were placed on comic book content during the 1950s, especially in the horror and crime genres. This moral panic was promoted by the psychologistFredric Wertham, who claimed that comics were a major source of juvenile delinquency, arguing in his bookSeduction of the Innocent that they predisposed children to violence. Comic books appeared in congressional hearings, and organisations promotedbook burnings.[58][59] Wertham's work resulted in the creation of theComics Code, which drastically limited what kind of content could be published.[59] As a result of these limitations, many comics publishers and illustrators were forced to leave the profession, and the content produced by those that remained became tamer and more focused onsuperheroes.[59][60]
During the following decades, the Comics Code was loosened in scope before finally being abolished in 2011.[58][60]
In the United States, a 1950 article titled "The Toy That Kills" in theWomen's Home Companion,[61] about automatic knives, or "switchblades", sparked significant controversy. It was further fuelled by highly popular films of the late 1950s, includingRebel Without a Cause (1955),Crime in the Streets (1956),12 Angry Men (1957),The Delinquents,High School Confidential (1958), and the 1957Broadway musicalWest Side Story.[62][63]
Fixation on the switchblade as the symbol of youth violence, sex, and delinquency resulted in demands from the public and Congress to control the sale and possession of such knives.[62][63] State laws restricting or criminalizing switchblade possession and use were adopted by an increasing number of state legislatures, and many of therestrictive laws around them worldwide date back to this period.[citation needed]
In early 1960s Britain, the two mainyouth subcultures wereMods andRockers. The "Mods and Rockers" conflict was explored as an instance of moral panic by sociologistStanley Cohen in his seminal studyFolk Devils and Moral Panics,[64] which examined media coverage of the Mod and Rocker riots in the 1960s.[65]
Although Cohen acknowledged that Mods and Rockers engaged instreet fighting in the mid-1960s, he argued that they were no different from the evening brawls that occurred between non-Mod and non-Rocker youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games.[66]
At various times,Dungeons & Dragons and othertabletop role-playing games have been accused of promoting such practices asSatanism,witchcraft,suicide,pornography andmurder. In the 1980s and later, some groups, especiallyfundamentalist Christian groups, accused the games of encouraging interest insorcery and the veneration ofdemons.[67][68]
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a viral illness that may lead to or exacerbate other health conditions such aspneumonia,fungal infections,tuberculosis,toxoplasmosis, andcytomegalovirus. A meeting of theBritish Sociological Association's South West and Wales Study entitled "AIDS: The Latest Moral Panic" was prompted by the growing interest of medical sociologists inAIDS, as well as that of UK health care professionals working in the field of health education. It took place at a time when both groups were beginning to voice an increased concern with the growing media attention andfear-mongering that AIDS was attracting.[69] In the 1980s, a moral panic was created within the media over HIV/AIDS. For example, in Britain, a prominent advertisement by the government[70] suggested that the public was uninformed about HIV/AIDS due to a lack of publicly accessible and accurate information.[71]
The media outlets nicknamed HIV/AIDS the "gay plague", which further stigmatized the disease. However, scientists gained a far better understanding of HIV/AIDS as it grew in the 1980s and moved into the 1990s and beyond. The illness was still negatively viewed by many as either being caused by or passed on through the gay community. Once it became clear that this was not the case, the moral panic created by the media changed to blaming the overall negligence of ethical standards by the younger generation (both male and female), resulting in another moral panic. Authors behindAIDS: Rights, Risk, and Reason argued that "British TV and press coverage is locked into an agenda which blocks out any approach to the subject which does not conform in advance to the values and language of a profoundly homophobic culture—a culture that does not regard gay men as fully or properly human. No distinction obtains for the agenda between 'quality' and 'tabloid' newspapers, or between 'popular' and 'serious' television."[72]
Similarly, reports of a group of AIDS cases amongst gay men inSouthern California which suggested that asexually transmittedinfectious agent might be theetiological agent[73] led to several terms relating to homosexuality being coined for the disease, includinggay plague.[74]
After a series of high-profile dog attacks on children in the United Kingdom, the British press began to engage in a campaign against so-called dangerous dog breeds, especiallypit bulls andRottweilers, which bore all the hallmarks of a moral panic.[75][76]
This media pressure led the government to hastily introduce theDangerous Dogs Act 1991 which has been criticised as "among the worst pieces of legislation ever seen, a poorly thought-out knee-jerk reaction to tabloid headlines that was rushed through Parliament without proper scrutiny."[77] The act specifically focused on pit bulls, which were associated with the lower social strata of British society, rather than the Rottweilers andDobermann Pinschers generally owned by richer social groups. Critics have identified the presence of social class as a factor in the dangerous dogs moral panic, with establishment anxieties about the "sub-proletarian" sector of British society displaced onto thefolk devil of the "Dangerous dog".[76]
Fear of increasing crime rates is often the cause of moral panics.[7][27][78][79] In fact, the rates of many types of crime havedeclined by 50% or more beginning in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s.[80] In Europe,crime statistics show this is part of a broader pattern of crime decline since theLate Middle Ages, with a reversal from the 1960s to the 1980s and 1990s, before the decline continued.[81]
This phenomenon, which often taps into a population'sherd mentality, continues to occur in various cultures. In some cases, the perception of increased crime can be caused by increased reporting of crimes or by better record-keeping. Japanese juristKoichi Hamai explains how the changes in crime recording in Japan since the 1990s caused people to believe that the crime rate was rising and that crimes were getting increasingly severe.[82]
There have been calls to regulate violence invideo games for nearly as long as the video game industry has existed, withDeath Race being a notable early example.[83][84] In the 1990s, improvements in video game technology allowed for more lifelike depictions of violence in games such asMortal Kombat andDoom. The industry attracted controversy over violent content and concerns abouteffects they might have on players, generating frequent media stories that attempted to associate video games with violent behavior, in addition to a number of academic studies that reported conflicting findings about the strength of correlations.[83] According to Christopher Ferguson, sensationalist media reports and the scientific community unintentionally worked together in "promoting an unreasonable fear of violent video games".[85] Concerns from parts of the public about violent games led to cautionary, often exaggerated news stories, warnings from politicians and other public figures, and calls for research to prove the connection, which in turn led to studies "speaking beyond the available data and allowing the promulgation of extreme claims without the usual scientific caution and skepticism".[85]
Since the 1990s, there have been attempts to regulate violent video games in the United States through congressional bills as well as within the industry.[83] Public concern and media coverage of violent video games reached a high point following theColumbine High School massacre in 1999, after which videos were found of the perpetrators,Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, talking about violent games likeDoom and making comparisons between the acts they intended to carry out and aspects of games.[83][85]
Ferguson and others have explained the video game moral panic as part of a cycle that all new media go through.[85][86][87] In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled inBrown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that legally restricting sales of video games to minors would be unconstitutional and deemed the research presented in favour of regulation as "unpersuasive".[85]
Some critics have pointed to moral panic as an explanation for the war on drugs. For example, aRoyal Society of Arts commission concluded that "theMisuse of Drugs Act 1971 ... is driven more by 'moral panic' than by a practical desire to reduce harm".[88]
Some have written that one of the many rungs supporting the moral panic behind the war on drugs was a separate but related moral panic, which peaked in the late 1990s, involving media's gross exaggeration of thefrequency of the surreptitious use of date rape drugs.[89][78][90] News media have been criticized for advocating "grossly excessive protective measures for women, particularly in coverage between 1996 and 1998", for overstating the threat and for excessively dwelling on the topic.[78] For example, a 2009 Australian study found that drug panel tests were unable to detect any drug in any of the 97 instances of patients admitted to the hospital believing their drinks might have been spiked.[91]
The media narrative of asex offender, highlighting egregious offenses as typical behaviour of any sex offender, and media distorting the facts of some cases,[92] has led legislators to attackjudicial discretion,[92] making sex offender registration mandatory based on certain listed offenses rather than individual risk or the actual severity of the crime, thus practically catching less serious offenders under the domain of harsh sex offender laws. In the 1990s and 2000s, there have been instances of moral panics in the United Kingdom and the United States, related to colloquial uses of the termpedophilia to refer to such unusual crimes as high-profile cases ofchild abduction.[93]
The moral panic over pedophilia began in the 1970s after thesexual revolution. Whilehomosexuality was becoming more socially accepted after the sexual revolution, pro-contact pedophiles believed that the sexual revolution never helped them.[94] In the 1970s, pro-contact pedophile activist organizations such asPaedophile Information Exchange (PIE) andNorth American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) were formed in October 1974 and December 1978, respectively. Despite receiving some support, PIE received much backlash when they advocated for abolishing or loweringage of consent laws. As a result, people protested against PIE.[95]
Until the first half of the 1970s, sex was not yet part of the concept of domesticchild abuse, which used to be limited to physical abuse and neglect.[96] The sexual part of child abuse became prominent in theUnited States due to the encounter of two political agendas: the fight againstbattered child syndrome by pediatricians during the 1960s and the feministanti-rape movement, in particular the denunciation of domesticsexual violence.[96] These two movements overlapped in 1975, creating a new political agenda about child sexual abuse. Laura Lowenkron wrote: "The strong political and emotional appeal of the theme of 'child sexual abuse' strengthened the feminist criticism of thepatriarchal family structure, according to which domestic violence is linked to the unequal power between men and women and between adults and children."[96] Although the concern over child sexual abuse was caused by feminists, the concern over child sexual abuse also attracted traditional groups and conservative groups. Lowenkron added: "Concerned about the increasing expansion and acceptance of so-called 'sexual deviations' during what was called the libertarian age from the 1960s to the early 1970s", conservative groups and traditional groups "saw in the fight against 'child sexual abuse' the chance" to "revive fears about crime and sexual dangers".[96]
In the 1980s, the media began to report more frequently on cases of children being raped, kidnapped, or murdered, leading to the moral panic over sex offenders and pedophiles becoming very intense in the early 1980s. In 1981, for instance, a six-year-old boy namedAdam Walsh was abducted, murdered, and beheaded. Investigators believe the murderer was serial killerOttis Toole. The murder of Adam Walsh took over nationwide news and led to a moral panic overchild abduction, followed by the creation of new laws formissing children.[97] According to criminologistRichard Moran, the Walsh case "created a nation of petrified kids and paranoid parents ... Kids used to be able to go out and organize a stickball game, and now all playdates and the social lives of children are arranged and controlled by the parents."[97]
Also during the 1980s, inaccurate and heavily flawed data about sex offenders and theirrecidivism rates was published. This data led to the public believing sex offenders to have a particularly high recidivism rate; this in turn led to the creation ofsex offender registries.[98] Later information revealed that sex offenders, including child sex offenders, have a low recidivism rate.[98][99][100][101][102] Other highly publicized cases, similar to the murder of Adam Walsh, that contributed to the creation of sex offender registries and sex offender laws include the abduction and murder of 11-year-old boyJacob Wetterling in 1989; the rape and murder of 7-year-old girlMegan Kanka in 1994; and the rape and murder of 9-year-old girlJessica Lunsford in 2005.[98]
Another contributing factor in the moral panic over pedophiles and sex offenders was theday-care sex-abuse hysteria in the 1980s and early 1990s, including theMcMartin preschool trial. This led to a panic where parents becamehypervigilant with concerns of predatory child sex offenders seeking to abduct children in public spaces, such as playgrounds.[103]
The "satanic panic" was a series of moral panics regarding satanic ritual abuse that originated in the United States and spread to other English-speaking countries in the 1980s and 1990s, which led to a string of wrongful convictions.[12][93][104][105] TheWest Memphis Three were three teenagers falsely accused of murdering children in a satanic ritual.[citation needed] Two were sentenced to life in prison and one was sentenced to death, before all being released after 18 years in prison.
Many critics of contemporary anti-prostitution activism argue that much of the current concern abouthuman trafficking and its more general conflation withprostitution and other forms ofsex work have hallmarks of moral panic. They further argue that this moral panic shares much in common with the "white slavery" panic of a century earlier, which in the US prompted passage of the 1910Mann Act.[106][107][108][109]Nick Davies argues that the following major factors contributed towards this effect. Since thecollapse of Communism, Western Europe was flooded with sex workers fromEastern Europe, and the termsex trafficking came to mean any organized movement of sex workers, regardless of whether there was force or coercion involved. This change of definition even entered into law, for example in the UK'sSexual Offences Act 2003. Furthermore, academic researchers analysing the sex trade provided a range of estimates of trafficked persons, with some figures based on dubious assumptions or inconsistent data. The media picked the most alarmist numbers, which were uncritically used by politicians, who in turn were quoted, leading to the spread of poorly-authenticated statistics.[110]
After theSeptember 11 attacks in 2001, some scholars identified a risingfear of Muslims in the western world, which they described as a moral panic.[111][14][112] This exaggeration of the threat posed by Islam served a political purpose, contributing to the concept of a globalwar on terror, including thewar in Afghanistan and awar in Iraq.[14][113]
Following the September 11 attacks, there was a dramatic increase in hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs in the United States, with rates peaking in 2001 and later surpassed in 2016.[14][114]
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A moral panic happened around the websiteMySpace, then the largestsocial networking site globally, mostly around the 2005-2009 period. MySpace was founded in 2003, and during most of the panic, the minimum age to register was 14, though it was later decreased to 13. Concerns about predators roaming on the website emerged, and it started a moral panic over social networking sites.[115] TheUS government tried to take action by introducing theDeleting Online Predators Act of 2006 (DOPA)[116]. The panic was fueled by the reality television series,To Catch a Predator. By 2010, the panic had disappeared, primarily due to the decrease of visitors on the website and more people shifting toFacebook, which was thought to be "safer" at the time.[citation needed]
A moral panic occurred in Australia between 2007 and 2018, centred on the supposed presence ofSudanese-Australian criminal gangs.[117] The height of the panic coincided with theVictorian State election of 2018, and was strongly linked to members of theAustralian Liberal Party and right-wing newspapers.[118] The racialised nature of the panic showed great similarities to the "Black muggers" panic studied by Hall, but met with greater resistance from local "experts" such as senior police and politicians, limiting its effectiveness to a degree.[118]
QAnon, a late-2010s to early 2020s far-right conspiracy theory that began on4chan and which alleged that a secretcabal ofJewish,Satan-worshipping,cannibalistic pedophiles is running a globalchild sex-trafficking ring, has been described as a moral panic and compared to the 1980s panic over satanic ritual abuse.[119]
Since the early 2020s, members of thefar-right and a growing number of mainstreamconservatives, mostly in the United States, have falsely accusedLGBTQ people, drag performers, and educators ofgrooming children for including LGBTQ-positive material in libraries and curricula.[120] These accusations include several elements of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracies characterized by scholars ashomophobic andtransphobic, and sometimes related to a broader moral panic about transgender people.[121][122][123]
Paul Joosse has argued that while classic moral panic theory styled itself as being part of the "sceptical revolution" that sought to critiquestructural functionalism, it is actually very similar toÉmile Durkheim's depiction of how thecollective conscience is strengthened through its reactions todeviance (in Cohen's case, for example, "right-thinkers" use folk devils to strengthen societal orthodoxies). In his analysis ofDonald Trump's victory in the2016 United States presidential election, Joosse reimagined moral panic inWeberian terms, showing how charismatic moral entrepreneurs can at once deride folk devils in the traditional sense while avoiding the conservative moral recapitulation that classic moral panic theory predicts.[124] Another criticism is that of disproportionality: there is no way to measure what a proportionate reaction should be to a specific action.[125]
Writing in 1995 about the moral panic that arose in the UK after a series of murders by juveniles, chiefly that of two-year-oldJames Bulger by two 10-year-old boys but also including that of 70-year-oldEdna Phillips by two 17-year-old girls, the sociologistColin Hay pointed out that the folk devil was ambiguous in such cases; the child perpetrators would normally be thought of as innocent.[126]
In 1995,Angela McRobbie andSarah Thornton argued "that it is now time that every stage in the process of constructing a moral panic, as well as the social relations which support it, should be revised". Their argument is that mass media has changed since the concept of moral panic emerged so "that 'folk devils' are less marginalized than they once were", and that "folk devils" are not only castigated by mass media but supported and defended by it as well. They also suggest that the "points of social control" that moral panics used to rest on "have undergone some degree of shift, if not transformation".[127]
British criminologist Yvonne Jewkes (2004) has also raised issue with the termmorality, how it is accepted unproblematically in the concept of "moral panic" and how most research into moral panics fails to approach the term critically but instead accepts it at face value.[43] Jewkes goes on to argue that the thesis and the way it has been used fails to distinguish between crimes that quite rightly offend human morality, and thus elicit a justifiable reaction, and those that demonise minorities. The public are not sufficiently gullible to keep accepting the latter and consequently allow themselves to be manipulated by the media and the government.[43]
Another British criminologist, Steve Hall (2012), goes a step further to suggest that the termmoral panic is a fundamental category error. Hall argues that although some crimes are sensationalized by the media, in the general structure of the crime/control narrative the ability of the existing state and criminal justice system to protect the public is also overstated. Public concern is whipped up only for the purpose of being soothed, which produces not panic but the opposite, comfort and complacency.[128]
Echoing another point Hall makes, sociologists Thompson and Williams (2013) argue that the concept of "moral panic" is not a rational response to the phenomenon of social reaction, but itself a product of the irrational middle-class fear of the imagined working-class "mob". Using as an example a peaceful and lawful protest staged by local mothers against the re-housing of sex-offenders on their estate, Thompson and Williams argue that the sensationalist demonization of the protesters by moral panic theorists and the liberal press was just as irrational as the demonization of the sex offenders by the protesters and the tabloid press.[129]
Many sociologists and criminologists (Ungar, Hier, Rohloff)[130] have revised Cohen's original framework. The revisions are compatible with the way in which Cohen theorizes panics in the thirdIntroduction to Folk Devils and Moral Panics.[131]
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 [...].
The contributors examine the social, cultural, and political drivers of the war on terror through the framework of a 'political moral panic.'
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