Moral panic
Definition
A period of intense, media-driven public anxiety about a group or behaviour perceived as an exceptional threat to social order. Coined by Stanley Cohen in 1972, the concept identifies the amplifying role of media, folk devils, and moral entrepreneurs in constructing crime problems beyond their empirically observed scale.
Related terms
- AI-enabled crime
- Offences in which artificial intelligence tools are used to plan, execute, or conceal criminal acts. Includes deepfake fraud, AI-generated phishing, voice-cloning scams,...
- Folk devil
- The group or category of person cast as the source of the moral threat in a moral panic. The folk devil is...
- Green criminology
- A criminological perspective that studies crimes against the environment, including pollution, illegal wildlife trade, and resource exploitation, as well as the role...
- Mean world syndrome
- George Gerbner's term for the phenomenon in which heavy television viewing produces inflated estimates of personal victimisation risk. Long-term viewers perceive the...
- Transnational organised crime
- Criminal enterprises that operate across national borders, coordinating production, transit, and distribution of illegal goods or services in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. Trafficking...
Explained in
- Media, Crime, and Emerging ChallengesA period of intense, media-driven public anxiety about a group or behaviour perceived as an exceptional threat to social order. Coined by Stanley Cohen in 1972...