Stanley Cohen

Stanley Cohen (1942–2013) was a South African-born British sociologist and criminologist who coined the influential concept of “moral panic” and popularized it through his 1972 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which demonstrated how small events can escalate into national moral crises through media exaggeration, public fear, and social control measures.

Claims that use this term

• Moral panic is a widespread fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values of a community, first theorized by Stanley Cohen in 1972.
• Stanley Cohen showed how a small event can grow into a national moral crisis through media exaggeration, public fear, and official control measures.
• First coined by Jock Young (1971) and, later, Stanley Cohen (1972)
• The term was coined by Stanley Cohen in his 1973 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics.
• Folk Devils and Moral Panics is a 1972 sociology book by Stanley Cohen — the first book to define the social concept.