Moral Panic

Moral Panic is an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society. for example after the events of September 11th, a fear of middle-eastern people developed known informally as "Islamaphobia". this resulted in may middle-eastern people being discriminated against due to their ethnicity and religious preference, on the basis that is was a middle-eastern organisation (Al-Qaeda) who orchestrated, governed, and conducted the attacks. This resulted in the moral constituency being damaged severely, some may say the damage done will never heal. Another example of Moral Panic is the supposed affiliation between homosexuals and HIV/AIDS where there is a terrible stigmatism that all gay people have the disease and it was "A curse sent from god for being gay" and the "Gay Plague" which of course is completely incorrect and an outrageous allegation, including asylum seekers the list of stigmatisms towards certain groups of people which causes a public distress grows by the day. This process can also be referred to as "Folk Devil".

Stanley Cohen (Sociologist) actually observed that the media's impact upon events through their "Folk Devil" approach to events only ever intensified them and often the media would lie in attempts to sell more papers, however they would indirectly influence the events to follow, often negatively. For example in  1972 found that minor fights between Mods and Rockers in beach-side resorts were very much sensationalised by the media. One headline was “Wild ones invade seaside town – 97 arrests”.  In fact there were only 24 arrests. Cohen found that the media reporting led to increased policing which actually intensified the problem. More recently moral panics and consequent amplification have occurred about raves, football hooligans, girl gangs and terrorist threats.