"A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society."
"It is 'the process of arousing social concern over an issue,' usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and the mass media, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers."
"Moral panic happens when 'a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values & interests.' While the issues identified may be real, the claims 'exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm.'"
"Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory pedophiles; belief in ritual abuse of women and children by Satanic cults; and concerns over the effects of music lyrics."
"Those who start the panic after fearing a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are 'moral entrepreneurs', while those who supposedly threaten social order have been described as 'folk devils'."
"Stanley Cohen investigated a series of 'moral panics' in Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Cohen describes the reaction among the British public to the seaside rivalry between the 'mod' and "rocker' youth subcultures of 60s/70s. In a moral panic, 'the untypical is made typical.'"
"Characterizing the reactions to the mod and rocker conflict, Stanley Cohen identified four key agents in moral panics: mass media, moral entrepreneurs, the culture of social control, and the public."
"According to Cohen, there are five sequential stages in the construction of a moral panic:"
"1. An event, condition, episode, person, or group of persons is perceived and defined as a threat to societal values, safety, and interests."
"2. The nature of these apparent threats are amplified by the media, who present the supposed threat through simplistic, symbolic rhetoric. Such portrayals appeal to public prejudices, creating an evil in need of social control (folk devils) and victims (the moral majority)."
"3. A sense of social anxiety and concern among the public is aroused through these symbolic representations of the threat."
"4. The gatekeepers of morality—editors, religious leaders, politicians, and other 'moral'-thinking people—respond to the threat, with socially-accredited experts pronouncing their diagnoses and solutions to the 'threat'. This includes new laws or policies."
"5. The condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates."
"Sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten, except in folk-lore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy or even in the way the society conceives itself."
"Stanley Cohen identified four key agents in moral panics: mass media, moral entrepreneurs, the culture of social control, and the public."
"1. Media—producing 'coded images' of deviance and the deviants. This involves three processes:
Exaggeration and distortion of who did or said what;
Prediction, the dire consequences of failure to act;
Symbolization, signifying a person, word, or thing as a threat."
"2. Moral entrepreneurs — individuals and groups who target deviant behavior."
"3. Societal control culture — comprises those with institutional power: the police, the courts, and local and national politicians. They are made aware of the nature and extent of the 'threat'; concern is passed up to the national level, where control measures are instituted."
"4. The public — these include individuals and groups. They have to decide who and what to believe."
"Stanley Cohen stated that the mass media is the primary source of the public's knowledge about deviance and social problems. He further argued that moral panic gives rise to the 'folk devil' by labelling actions and people."
"Benjamin Radford listed themes that he commonly observed in modern versions of moral panics:
1. Hidden dangers of modern technology.
2. Evil stranger manipulating the innocent.
3. A 'hidden world' of anonymous evil people."
"The advent of any new medium of communication produces anxieties among self-appointed protectors of childhood and culture. Their fears are often based on lack of knowledge of the actual capacities or usage of the medium. Moralizing organizations commonly advocate censorship."
"Every time a new mass medium has entered the social scene, it has spurred public debates on social and cultural norms, debates that serve to reflect, negotiate and possibly revise these very norms. Debate of a new medium brings about heated, emotional reactions-a 'media panic'."
"Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed toward an object or person that one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration."
"The sense of weakness, inferiority complex, and jealousy in the face of the 'cause' generates a rejecting/justifying value system, or morality, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one's frustration."
"This value system is then used as a means of justifying one's own weaknesses by identifying the source of envy as objectively inferior, serving as a defense mechanism that prevents the resentful individual from addressing and overcoming their insecurities and flaws."
"A moral entrepreneur is an individual, group, or formal organization that seeks to influence a group to adopt or maintain a norm; altering the boundaries of altruism, deviance, duty or compassion."
"The moral entrepreneur may press for the creation or enforcement of a norm for any number of reasons, altruistic or selfish. Such individuals or groups also hold the power to generate moral panic."
"He is interested in the content of rules. The existing rules do not satisfy him because there is some evil which profoundly disturbs him. He feels that nothing can be right in the world until rules are made to correct it."
"An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance carried out of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning."
"Ferdinand II and Isabella I received permission from Pope Sixtus IV to name inquisitors throughout their domains. Autos-da-fé became quite popular throughout the Spanish realm, competing with bullfights for the public's attention and attended by royalty."
"Once granted permission from the Pope to conduct inquisitions, the monarchs began establishing permanent trials and developing bureaucracies to carry out investigations in most of the cities and communities in their empire."
"Salem witch trials: a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. More 200 people accused. 30 found guilty, 19 executed by hanging (14 women and 5 men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead."
"The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process."
"It was not unique, but a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took place also in Europe."
"Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors."
"Human sacrifice has been practiced in many different cultures. The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice is typically intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods."
"Human sacrifice may be practiced in a stable society, may even be conducive to enhance societal unity, creating a bond unifying the community -- and combining human sacrifice and capital punishment, removing individuals that have a negative effect on societal stability."
"A witch hunt is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft."
"In current language, 'witch hunt' metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, and so on, but with the real purpose of intimidating political opponents."
"Witch hunts can also involve elements of moral panic and mass hysteria."