Moral Panic

Moral panic is when a group, person or race threaten the social order of a country or place, in the past there have been many cases of this happening, the most earliest case where it startd is most likely when witches were thought to be real and they were often seen as the main problem of everything within a village. Another example is when 9/11 happened in america, muslims became the center of attention and anger of the whole country because a couple of their race commited terrorism. The media are often the main people that start off moral panic or get people to ‘panic’ because they broadcast the problems to the country and get everyone panicking.

The distinct features of moral panic are:

·         Concern - behaviour of a particular group is seen as a threat

·         Volatility - the situation erupts dramatically

·         Hostility - "folk devils" are constructed to create a diversion

·         Consensus - widespread acceptance of this threat

·         Disproportionality - wild exageration of the evidence