'Moral Panics' are not a new thing!

For all intents and purposes the ‘moral panic’ is nothing new. Throughout time there have been a number of panics over a variety of issues, ranging from crime and the activities of youth, to drugs and sexual freedom, each considered a threat to the moral fibre of society at that particular time- today is no exception (Furedi 1994: 1). As Furedi points out, ‘newspaper headlines continually warn of some new danger which threatens our health and happiness. Television programmes echo the theme with sensational accounts of crime and illustrations of the breakdown of family life’ (Furedi 1994: 1). Whereas in the past it may have been the ‘drug culture’ of the fifties and sixties, or the disruptive behaviour of the Mods and Rockers, today we face panics over ‘children who kill other children’, the threat to our health from outbreaks of BSE and E.coli food poisoning, teenagers gripped by a ‘new and threatening drug epidemic’- Ecstasy, and perhaps one of the more prominent panics at present- the ‘paedophile’. The issues to consider, it might then be suggested are: how does a panic occur and take hold; what are the indicators; and who is involved?

source ; aber.ac.uk

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