Moral panic promised sociologists a potentially powerful tool, as they would be able to declare that the social reactions to specific threats were overblown and unwarranted. But while the concept has remained marginal in sociology, it has found its way into the popular press. Drawing on both media research and practice, Kenneth Thompson argues that this is the age of moral panic and that the concept should take a much more central place in the discipline. The book is clearly and logically structured. Thompson goes on to summarize the history and definition of the concept, and then links it to both the idea of a risk society and discourse analysis.
Subsequent chapters cover different types of moral panics.
The first of these provides a nice summary of Cohen's classic study of Mods and Rockers. Chapters provide sufficient background on each topic, and Thompson offers some interesting comparisons of developments in Britain and the United States. He also analyzes the various moral panics from a number of different perspectives. Thus with the moral panic over mugging, he eschews the questions of whether this crime was increasing or whether people's fears were proportionate. Other moral panics are examined from a social movement perspective, from a social psychological approach, and so on.