Moral Panic

A widespread, disproportionate fear that a person, group or condition threatens the values or well-being of society, amplified beyond what the underlying facts warrant by media coverage, moral entrepreneurs and agents of social control. The sociologist Stanley Cohen developed the concept from his study of 1960s British youth subcultures, tracing a sequence in which a condition or group is defined as a threat, its nature is stylized and exaggerated by the mass media, and public and official reaction escalates well beyond the scale of the actual threat.