Causes Of Moral Panic

'Moral panic ' refers to the public and political reaction to minority or marginalized individuals and groups who appear to be some kind of threat to consensual values and interests (Jewkes 2015)

Societies will be subject to moral panic every so often. This is when an event, person or group of people appear to be seen as a threat to societal values and interests (Cohen, 1972). A moral panic is a feeling of fear that is spread to a large quantity of people usually through the media. It is created when an incident or person that is reported and viewed as being an evil threat to society. The media can create the idea of moral panic and there are types of people who are more likely to be targets of a moral panic such as, those who commit serious offences, those who behave antisocially, those who chose a different lifestyle from what is considered the 'normal ' and people who fail to conform consensually. Moral panic can be created from forms of troubling behaviour that is deemed to be uncontrollable usually concerning teenagers and gangs, this causes people to fear that certain group of people.

in the 1960 's there was a high concern regarding the youth of Britain, this was the first sociological analysis of a moral panic (Cohen, 1972). The Mods and Rockers were two groups of youths that began conflicting, with some

It is not unusual to see headlines in newspapers such as 'I will go back to Britain... and will carry on cutting heads off ' (Wahid Daily Mail, 2014) and '250 JIHADIS BACK IN BRITAIN ' (Penrose & Wright Daily Mirror, 2015). With these eye-catching headlines the general public immediately get the sense of fear and feeling unsafe, as there is an uncertainty around the subject it causes a moral panic. This shows the impact that the media can have on spreading a moral panic by installing fear into the readers