RESOURCES: Classic text revisited

The idea of moral panics has entered the popular vocabulary as well as having become a key concept in sociology. Rarely a day goes by without its use by politicians or in the media. Two contemporary 'folk devils' are suspected Islamic terrorists and asylum seekers.

Published in 1972 and empirically grounded in an analysis of the mods and rockers fighting on the beaches of Brighton, Clacton and Margate in the 1960s, Cohen anticipated that new folk devils would emerge and be subjected to the same processes of media sensitisation, societal reaction, moral censure and deviance amplification.

When I read the first edition, I was struck by Cohen writing about situational logic: a group of ordinary people at a bus stop were probably waiting for a bus; a group of Mods were certain to be waiting for trouble.

Since the original edition, the power of the media has increased to the point where there appears to be an incessant and seamless flow of moral panics. In his introduction to the third edition, Cohen writes that the study of moral panics "allows us to identify and conceptualise the lines of power in any society, the ways we are manipulated into taking some things too seriously and other things not seriously enough". He contends that "studying them is easy and a lot of fun".

That is the beauty of the book: it is a joy to read (particularly for those who remember the mods and rockers). But it also carries broader messages about how we demonise sections of society and then condemn them for the 'solutions' they seek to their predicaments.