Essay On Moral Panic

According to Good & Nachman (2009), a moral panic is a scare about a threat or supposed threat from deviants or “folk devils” a category of people who, presumably, engage in evil practices and are blamed for menacing a society’s culture, ways of life, and central values (2). Often times, there is hostility displayed towards these “folk devils,” as in the case of youth from 1995 that were referred as “stone-cold predators” and portrayed as “dangerous,” with no respect for others lives, and no sense of future. The claims generated by the mass media (e.g., newspaper, television, magazines) about the youth and young people in America was out of proportion to the actual threat, which was intended to generate extreme fear and concern in mass public and, perhaps, collectively tried to get the public to take action by contacting their political representatives, demand legislation, and for believers to persuade friends and neighbors to join them in the movement to denounce the evil doings of these so called “superpredators” (“folk devils”) at the time.

By factoring in the importance of deviance in this discussion in conjunction with other themes, such as moral entrepreneurs and the labeling theory, we can demonstrate the impact and legacy this particular moral panic had on U.S. society. Through a wide array of forces at play both on the macro and micro level, we can analyze the effects the “superpredator” moral panic had towards social stability, social change, and the moral boundaries within U.S. society. Ultimately, by scrutinizing the different elements and processes that catapulted this moral panic into the public eye, we can build on the current knowledge of the social construction of deviance, power, and social exclusion pertinent to our