On the concept of moral panic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5776856 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Garland (0000-0002-8710-4149, New York University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 9-30 |
| Publication date | 2008-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Crime Media Culture An International Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1741-6590 • E-ISSN: 1741-6604 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1741659007087270 |
| OpenAlex | W2096222907 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 208 |
| References cited | 38 |
The article develops a critical analysis of the concept of moral panic and its sociological uses. Arguing that some of the concept's subtlety and power has been lost as the term has become popular, the article foregrounds its Freudian and Durkheimian aspects and explicates the epistemological and ethical issues involved in its use. Contrasting the dynamics of moral panics to the dynamics of culture wars, the author shows that both phenomena involve group relations and status competition, though each displays a characteristically different structure. The piece concludes by situating `moral panics' within a larger typology of concepts utilized in the sociology of social reaction
Criminology · Dynamics · Epistemology · Freudian slip · Moral panic · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Typology · Anthropology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Taxing Taste and Gender
Francophonie
Vulnerability and its potential perils - on the criminalization of online luring in Canada and court cases tried in Ontario (2002-2014)
Mods and Rockers, Drunken Debutants, and Sozzled Students
Cybercrime and the Culture of Fear
Moral Panic
Arrested Circulation
Moral Panics
Modern Folk Devils
The Polarization Problematic
Agrarian alarmism and transnational right-wing solidarity
Panic without closure
La opinión pública colombiana sobre el acuerdo de paz 2016-2020
Verification Gestures by Twitter Users
De la dangerosité à la vulnérabilité
The Sisyphean Cycle of Technology Panics
Moral panics and the media–subcultural symbiosis
Misinformation about fake news
Beware of the watchdog
The Loughan House Controversy
Social media, migration and the platformization of moral panic
Spreading online rumours during the Covid-19 pandemic
Social Media News Production, Emotional Facebook Reactions, and the Politicization of Drug Addiction
The hip hop-gang crime-radicalization nexus, public concerns over a contested subcultural genre, Denmark anno 2025
A ‘superstorm’
Pirate Panics
Evil Invariables and Moral Panic
Transformaciones urbanas, temor y empeligrosamiento social en vecindarios
Infrapolitiques des paniques morales
"Humans bring food to their mouths, animals bring their mouths to food"-The morality politics of school-lunch sporks in 1970s Japan
Inseguridad ciudadana y diferenciación social en el nivel microbarrial
Del odio al prejuicio
From Spoiled Identity to Cleft Identity
“It’s a Trap for Everyone”
“How Could a Mother Do That to Her Children?”
From Terf to gender critical
Deviance, Research Methods
Measles, Moral Regulation and the Social Construction of Risk
Présentation. Entre paniques et croisades
Media/Crime/Millennium
Exploring How Media Influence Preventive Behavior and Excessive Preventive Intention during the Covid-19 Pandemic in China
Fear, Stigma and Othering
Changes in HIV knowledge, and socio-cultural and sexual attitudes in South India from 2003-2009
Towards an Information Motivation and Behavioral Skills Model for New Sex Partners
Conceptualising Responses to Institutional Abuse of Children
Methamphetamine Discourse
Trans Justice Fights Trans Moral Panic
Spirals of Signification? A Corpus Linguistic Analysis of the German Doping Discourse
The morality of security
Closing the Borders to End Human Trafficking
Touch, Fear, and Child Protection
Female genital mutilation’ in Europe
Bad Sports
A Hybrid Model of Moral Panics
Journalism, Moral Panic and the Public Interest
Beyond folk devil resistance
Neo-Nazis and moral panic
Cautionary tales
Transforming the Central Park jogger into the Central Park Five
Never boring
Mephedrone, assassin of youth
The darkest time in our history”
Moral panic
Between heat and light
Moral panics, conservative contrarianism, and the polarizing debate about missing children, unmarked burials, and residential school denialism in Canada
Loverboys in the Amsterdam Red Light District
Moral panics and the transgressive other
Competing constructions of bath salts use and risk of harm in two mediated contexts
Reporting ‘African gangs’
Justice, politics and the social usefulness of news
Institutional deviance in TV news
Whose side were we on? The undeclared politics of moral panic theory
The Campaign Against Sex Work in the United States
Between bodies and collectivities
When no one is hearing them swear” - Youth Safety and the Pedagogy of Surveillance
Emergent Policing Practices
Risky positions? Shifting representations of urban youth in the talk of professionals and young people
Sex panic and robots
Where’s the panic, where’s the fire? Why claims of moral panic and witch hunts miss the mark when it comes to campus rape and MeToo
Too sexy too soon, or just another moral panic? Sexualization, children, and “technopanics” in the Australian media 2004–2015
Missing the moral
Groomers, gays, and gender ideology
Moral panic as racial degradation ceremony
Collocations in context
Standing up to complexity
Social media and moral panics
The weakest link in existing studies
Towards a Bourdieusian frame of moral panic analysis
Trial by media’
A guilty pleasure
Exploring the continuing relevance of Policing the Crisis
Hands off! The practice and politics of touch in physical education and sports coaching
Anti-sexual violence movement against punitive measures
She Exploded into a Million Pieces”
The Public Debates Regarding the Use of the Contraceptive Pill and PrEP
Paralyzing DEI
A Moral Panic? The Problematization of Forced Marriage in British Newspapers
Mobilising through fear
Innocent narratives
Swamped by Muslims’ and facing an ‘African gang’ problem
Outcast London
Symbolic crusade
Hooligan
The Culture of Control
The Rise of Risk
Human deviance, social problems, and social control
Policing the Crisis
Policing the Crisis
Folk devils and moral panics
The Division of Labor in Society
Random Violence
Social Deviance
Moral Panics
Kriminologisches Journal
Folk Devils and Moral Panics
Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity
The Culture of Control
Folk Devils and Moral Panics
Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity
The Rules of Sociological Method
The Road to Dystopia? Changes in the Penal Climate of the Netherlands
Controlology
The Social Construction of What
Enemies Everywhere
Scapegoats, villains, and disasters
Mass Imprisonment
Rethinking 'Moral Panic' for Multi-Mediated Social Worlds
Mugging as a Moral Panic
Moral panic versus the risk society
The Razor Blade in the Apple
The making of a moral panic in 19th-century America
| Unique citing works | 208 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 11,56 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2026 (19) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 203 |