Moral panic
A wave of public fear that a group or practice threatens society, often out of proportion to the evidence.
Also: folk devils, social panic
The sociologist Stanley Cohen coined the term in Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), writing about British reaction to youth clashes. A moral panic has a named threat, media amplification, expert statements and calls for action, and then it fades. Historians and sociologists have applied the idea to witch-hunts, the Satanic panic and fears about hidden cults. Some critics argue that the term can dismiss genuine harm, and the concept is debated. In the study of magic it is a lens for asking how fear spreads, who is blamed and what is gained by those who lead the campaign, without assuming that everything reported was invented or that nothing was.