Debate: Is Moral Panic a useful concept?

Stan Cohen 

Moral Panic

• Public concern about some exaggerated or imaginary threat to society, stirred up by exaggerated or sensationalised reporting in the mass media.

Folk Devils

• Individuals or groups posing an imagined or exaggerated threat to society.

Deviancy Amplification

• The way the media may actually make worse or create the very deviance they condemn by their exaggerated, sensationalised and distorted reporting of events and their presence at them. 

McRobbie & Thornton ('95)

• Moral Panic is an outdated concept.
• New media e.g internet, TV on demand etc. means we do not all receive the same uniform message from media. 
• Media audiences are more sophisticated. Audiences do not accept blindly the representation/interpretation of the media professionals. 
• There is a diversity of (different) media reports etc. --> The Media cannot control the interpretation.
• Most moral panics are short lived --> fast moving media.