Cohens Moral Panic

The Moral Panic is a condition, episode, person or group of persons that emerge as a threat to societal values and interests. These people or episodes are build up as 'social devils' when the powerful groups that have influence over the media face troubled times, which often results in that group of people or event facing a lot of disapproval or hostility in public opinion. Social devil are often subject to stereotyping and are used as a scapegoat of sorts, to blame all the current problems of society on, even when they have little to nothing to do with the problem at hand (which they often don't). Dome examples of -social devils' built up by the media were football in England around 100 years ago, which was blamed as the cause of hooliganism. Bicycles were similarly blasted in the media in the 1890 as the cause of 'chaos and terror' in society. More recent examples include Video games, which have been blamed for a lot of societies problems since the 90's, and most recently the internet, which various arms of the media have claimed has skewered our values as a society.