Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars

On Folk Devils, Moral Panics and New Wave Public Health

New wave public health places an emphasis on exhorting individuals to engage in healthy behaviour with good health being a signifier of virtuous moral standing, whereas poor health is often associated with personal moral failings. In effect, the medical is increasingly being collapsed into the moral. This approach is consistent with other aspects of contemporary neolibe...

Liquidity Provision vs. Deposit Insurance: Preventing Bank Panics without Moral Hazard?

In this paper I ask whether a central bank policy of providing liquidity to banks during panics can prevent bank runs without causing moral hazard. This kind of policy has been widely advocated, most notably by Bagehot (1873). To analyze such a policy, I build a model with three key features: 1) bank panics can occur in equilibrium, 2) there can be moral hazard, 3) the central bank can create m...

To Catch a Predator

This paper is about moral panics over contemporary technology, which I call " technopanics. " I use two examples, the cyberporn panic of 1996 and the contemporary panic over online predators and MySpace, to demonstrate the links between media coverage and content legislation. In both cases, Internet content legislation is directly linked to media-fueled moral panics that concern uses of technol...

Anti-Polish Migrant Moral Panic in the UK: A Response

The contribution of Sean Hier details for us the evolution of understanding with regard to moral panics, including highlighting its recent formulation into a panics-as-regulation research framework. Central to this emerging panics-as-regulation framework are contemporary moral regulation and individual risk management studies. Therefore, our contribution has demonstrated how this conceptual fra...

Moral Panics and Video Games