Despite a growing body of research on moral panic theory, this framework has been largely inattentive to the role of race and class in the creation of moral panics over drug abuse. Using a content analysis of 124 newspaper articles, this study extends moral panic theory by examining whether the race and class of crack cocaine and methamphetamine users and traffickers shaped the print media’s de...

Comparing moral panic with the potential catastrophes of the risk society, Sheldon Ungar contends that new sites of social anxiety emerging around nuclear, medical, environmental and chemical threats have thrown into relief many of the questions motivating moral panic research agendas. He argues that shifting sites of social anxiety necessitate a rethinking of theoretical, methodological and co...

This paper compares moral panic with the potential political catastrophes of a risk society. The aim of the comparison is threefold: 1. to establish the position of risk society threats alongside more conventional moral panics; 2. to examine the conceptual shifts that accompany the new types of threats; and 3. to outline the changing research agenda. The paper suggests that as new sites of soci...

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...