Moral panic occurs when a group or behavior is perceived as threatening societal values and interests. Media plays a role by dramatizing stories in ways that appeal to audiences but also sensationalize events and call for punishment. Stanley Cohen studied the mods and rockers of the 1960s and how they were negatively portrayed in the media as folk devils threatening law and order. For a moral panic to occur there must be widespread concern about a perceived threat, increased hostility towards the group, a consensus that the group is dangerous, and a disproportionate reaction, though moral panics tend to be short-lived.

1. moral panic

2. Lesson objectives
one Understand the concept of moral panic
two Identify when moral panic occurs
in the media
three Understand the process of how moral
panic unfolds

3. moral panic
The intensity of feeling
expressed in a population
that appears to threaten the
social order.

4. role of the media
The media operate as agents of
moral imagination, either by
actively crusading, or simply
framing news stories in
dramatic ways that will appeal
to consumers.

5. Stanley cohen (1975)
Folk Devils and Moral
Panics

6. Stanley cohen claimed that a
moral panic occurs when
condition, episode, person or
group of persons emerges to
become defined as a threat to
societal values and interests.

7. Those who start the panic
when they fear a threat to
prevailing social or cultural
values are known as moral
entrepreneurs.

8. Those who supposedly
threaten the social order
have been described as folk
devils.

9. cohen’s study was
primarily about the mods
and the rockers of the
1960s and the treatment they
received in the public eye.

10. The main criticism was that
they were seen as a threat to law
and order largely through the
way the mass media
represented them, in the form of
what Cohen calls the control
culture.

11. Largely this refers to the media
sensationalising an event and
then calling for a punishment
to be set to persecute the
offenders.

12. Click on the title
to open a video
mods, rockers and moral panics

13. characteristics of
a moral panic

14. concern
There must be awareness that
the behaviour of the group or
category in question is likely to
have a negative impact on
society.

15. hostility
Hostility towards the group in
question increases, and they
become folk devils. Clear
distinctions are drawn
between us and them.

16. consensus
Widespread acceptance
emerges that the group in
question poses a very real
threat to society.

17. disproportion
The action taken is
disproportionate to the
actual threat posed by the
group.

18. volatility
Moral Panics tend to
disappear as quickly as they
appeared, due to a wane in
public interest or news reports
changing to another topic.

19. The objects of moral panic
belong to seven clusters of
social identity:

20. 1.
!
!
young,
working-class,
violent males

22. 2.
!
!
school violence:
bullying and
shootouts

24. 3.
!
!
wrong drugs:
used by wrong
people at wrong
places

27. 4.
!
!
child abuse,
satanic rituals
and paedophile
registers

29. 5.
!
!
sex,
violence and
blaming the media

31. 6.
!
!
welfare cheats
and single
mothers

33. 7.
!
!
refugees and
asylum seekers

36. Next class will be on
Audience, Medium and genre