Moral Panic

According to Cohen, 1972, Moral Panic is "A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges as a threat to societal values and interests: it's nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media: the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to."
Alternatively, moral panics involve the construction of "folk devils" that need controlling, which leads to increased social control.
Examples of moral panic in the past include child abductors after the kidnapping and murder of James Bulger in 1993 and Islamophobia after the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001. However, most recently, a lot of Moral Panic has been blamed on video games due to accusations of them causing acts of crime and violence in real life. An example of this would be the video game Mortal Kombat, after the murder of 13 year-old Noah Wilson at the hands of his friend Yancy, who used a finishing move from the game to murder Wilson. Another example would be the video game Doom after the Columbine High School Massacre, after it become known that the perpetrators, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were obsessed with the video game.

Some terminology used for moral panic would be:
-Concern - behaviour of a particular group represented as having threat
-Volatility - panics erupt dramatically but are difficult to sustain. Negative consequences for the rest of us
-Hostility - "folk devils" constructed to create a clear division between "them" and "us"
-Consensus - widespread acceptance of the threat posed by this group. Not necessarily reflecting optional concern but the campaigner will be very vocal whilst the opposition will be weak and disorganised.
-Disproportionality - wild exaggeration of evidence