Cohens Moral panic!

Cohen’s moral panic is a way that media can be used to show a certain person, persons, condition in a certain way that appears to threaten society in some way. This thought was brought to life by a man named Stanley Cohen who said that panic can cause a condition, episode, person or group of persons to be looked at as a threat to society presented in a stereotypical fashion by the media on a mass scale, people in social power can stir up feelings of panic selecting how these things a viewed and when the media decides to show these in a bad way ‘Folk Devils’ are made, these are people that need help to be controlled this is where the panic start to kick in.

‘Folk Devils’ are created by the media who use the evidence of something and exaggerate the truth by adding more people in an attack or increasing the violence used in a riot for example, the writer of the piece wrote about the ‘Folk Devil’ will be very vocal in their piece and this will effect what the widespread general thought of society, they are greeted by the public by a great deal of hostility in the sense of a “them” and “us” type of way, however they are very short lived as it is hard to sustain the story on a long term bases.