Moral Panics

Résumé du livre

Similar to other social scientific concepts, moral panic has an everyday meaning and a sociological or analytical meaning. In the everyday sense, moral panics are commonly understood as irrational overreactions to insignificant if not nonexistent threats. In this way, the everyday meaning of moral panic tends to be associated with topics such as drug use, teen sex, immigrants, and terrorists. In the analytical sense, by contrast, moral panic is understood as a type of grievance-based social problem. As special kinds of claims or discourses, moral panics are characterized analytically by defensive social reactions against real or perceived threats to valued social norms. In this way, moral panics assume a common structure or form that juxtaposes collective forms of security and risk management to individualizing allocations ...