moral panic

English

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moral panic

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Moral panic

Etymology

Modern usage appears to originate with Jock Young in 1971^[1] and Stanley Cohen in 1972.^[2] Cohen states that "[they] both probably picked it up from Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media".^[2]

Noun

moral panic (plural moral panics)

A semi-spontaneous or media-generated mass movement based on the perception that an individual, group, community, or culture is dangerously deviant and poses a menace to society; a public outcry.
- 2016 July 2, Sophie Gilbert, “Is Moral Panic About Online Porn Misplaced?”, in The Atlantic‎^[1]:
  The psychotherapist Marty Klein likens the current moral panic around online porn to the epidemics of fear and suspicion that sprung up around satanic cults in the 1980s, and even around comic books in the 1950s.
- 2021 June 17, Moira Donegan, “What the moral panic about ‘critical race theory’ is about”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:
  But maybe the very obscurity of this genuine critical race theory is the point: before it became the object of the American right’s latest moral panic, few people had heard of critical race theory, and even fewer understood what it really was.
- 2023 June 29, Pamela Paul, “Do Not Panic. It’s Just a Moral Panic.”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:
  Moral panics have existed since well before the Salem witch trials — perhaps the paradigm case. But thanks in part to social media, they are increasing in number and changing in nature.
- 2024 May 21, Matthew Reisz, “Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion by Agnes Arnold-Foster review – the past isn’t a foreign place”, in The Guardian‎^[4], →ISSN:
  None of this is new. Moral panics, accompanied by calls for a return to a simpler age, once greeted the advent of frightening “new technologies” such as telephones and trains.

Translations

mass movement, public outcry

Chinese:
Mandarin: 道德恐慌 (dàodé kǒnghuāng)
Danish: moralpanik c
Dutch: morele paniek
Finnish: moraalipaniikki
French: panique morale (fr) f, tollé public m
German: moralische Panik f, allgemeiner Protest m
Greek: ηθικός πανικός (ithikós panikós), δημόσια κατακραυγή (dimósia katakravgí)
Icelandic: siðfár n
Italian: panico morale m
Japanese: 道徳的なパニック (dōtokuteki na panikku)
Korean: 도덕적인 공황 (dodeokjeogin gonghwang)
Latin: ^{(please verify)} pavor moralis
Polish: panika moralna f
Portuguese: pânico moral m
Russian: мора́льная па́ника (morálʹnaja pánika), ма́ссовая истери́я (mássovaja isteríja)
Spanish: pánico moral m
Swedish: moralpanik c

References

^ Jock Young (1971) The Drugtakers: The Social Meaning of Drug Use, Paladin, →ISBN, pages 182, 197
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Stanley Cohen (1972) “Introduction to the Third Edition”, in Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, 3rd edition, New York City: Routledge, published 2010, →ISBN, →OCLC, page XXXV:
The term 'moral panic' was first used by Jock Young in 'The Role of the Police as Amplifiers of Deviancy, Negotiators of Reality and Translators of Fantasy', in S. Cohen (Ed.), Image of Deviance (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p. 37. We both probably picked it up from Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, published in 1964.

[1] Jock Young (1971) The Drugtakers: The Social Meaning of Drug Use, Paladin, →ISBN, pages 182, 197

[Cohen-2] 2.0 ^2.1 Stanley Cohen (1972) “Introduction to the Third Edition”, in Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, 3rd edition, New York City: Routledge, published 2010, →ISBN, →OCLC, page XXXV:
The term 'moral panic' was first used by Jock Young in 'The Role of the Police as Amplifiers of Deviancy, Negotiators of Reality and Translators of Fantasy', in S. Cohen (Ed.), Image of Deviance (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p. 37. We both probably picked it up from Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, published in 1964.

[1]

[2]