Identifying Moral Panic: The Discourse of Fear in Social Policy

by Michael H Eversman

"As the United States shifts toward a multiracial, foreign-born, and religiously unaffiliated majority populace, we will continue to face existential questions around our collective identity amid conflict in defining social problems and policy solutions. Using the sociological framework of moral panic periods of exaggerated public fear triggered by high-profile incidents linked to feared social groups Eversman illuminates historic and contemporary moral panic episodes to show how political discourse and stereotyping lead to policymaking and enforcement that maintain social inequalities."

208 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 2022