Moral Panics

Moral panics are public controversies over perceived breaches of cultural boundaries by some group that follow a surprisingly regular structure. Moral panics are rarely spontaneous; they are orchestrated by "moral entrepreneurs" such as politicians or other interested parties to direct what the public worries about and focuses on, creating "folk devils" for or against whom people are invited to take sides. Originally described in 1972 by Stanley Cohen, moral panics tended to focus on supposed dangers from within the community, but increasingly with globalization these moral dangers as viewed as coming from outside. This is a video from my course ATH 327 "Pokemon: Global and Local Contexts" is part of a larger module that explores moral panics over Pokemon in the U.S., the Middle East and beyond.