English Explanatory Dictionary

moral panic

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A semi-spontaneous or media-generated mass movement based on the perception that an individual, group, community, or culture is dangerously deviant and poses a menace to society; a public outcry.

Word forms

moral panic moral panics

Etymology

Modern usage appears to originate with Jock Young in 1971 and Stanley Cohen in 1972. Cohen states that "[they] both probably picked it up from Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media".

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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