Moral Panic

Cohen (1972) believed in Moral panics. Moral Panics are a creation of the media. The media does this by focusing on a particular topic through news programs, newspapers, etc. When people pick up on the amount of focus they start to believe it to be a huge problem.

Some examples of moral panics are the Mods and Rockers (1960) ,Punks (1970) or Hoodies (2005) these are all negative examples of moral panics. The moral panic lead to ban of hoodies in the blue waters shopping centre the link to the article is below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4534903.stm



More positive examples of moral panics are the ISIS terrorist organisation and the syrian refugee crisis as these are real problems effecting the world. This puts the argument against moral panics off balance cause it shows that these moral panics can help boost efforts to help out the world. Charities like UNHCR benefitted from this as people felt inclined to donate to charity.

UNHCR - Donate