Folk Devils and Moral Panics

by Stanley Cohen

Stanley Cohen's study of Mods and Rockers in the 1960s was a foundational text both in terms of investigating the workings of subcultural groups and identifying the concept of a 'moral panic' generated by the media, which leads to groups being vilified in the popular imagination, and inhibits rational debate about solutions to the social problems such groups represent. The insights Cohen provides into subculture and mass morality are as relevant today as they were when the book was originally published in 1972, as illustrated by the author's introduction for this new edition, in which he tracks moral panics over the last thirty years, commenting on the demonization of young offenders and asylum seekers and on the News of the World 's 'name and shame' campaign against paedophiles.
Revisiting the theory of moral panic and exploring the way in which the concept has been used, this new edition features a select bibliography of key texts for further reading. The third edition of Folk Devils and Moral Panics makes available a valuable and widely recommended text.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Psychology, Social Science, Philosophy

200 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 1973

About the author

There are more than one Stanley Cohen author.

*Stanley Cohen (1922-): USA biochemist
*Stanley Cohen (1928–2010): USA crime novelist
*Stanley Cohen (1934-): USA sport writer
*Stanley Cohen (1937-): USA biologist
*Stanley Cohen (1942–2013): South Africa-British sociologist

Reviews

[E. G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moral Panics as Cultural Politics: Introduction to the Third Edition

--Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The creation of the Mods and Rockers

Appendix: Sources of Data
Selected Reading List
Notes and References
General Index
Author Index

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an academic endeavor, a study and assessment of a social phenomena which occurred in mid 1960’s Britain. However, it certainly raises ideas which remain relevant to social problems and deviance today. Dry and academic for certain, but still interesting and applicable to today.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esqueça o subtítulo deste livro, "a criação dos Mods e dos Rockers", e foque no título, "Demônios Populares e Pânico Moral". Foi por causa dessas definições que este livro de Stanley Cohen ficou famoso nos anos 80. Embora o contexto e o estudo de caso dos Mods e dos Rockers, - duas "tribos" rivais dos anos 70 na Grã-Bretanha que causavam baderna nas pacatas cidades inglesas -, ocupe a maior parte deste livro, é o conceito de Pânico Moral que atrai a grande parte do seu público. Pânico Moral, nas minhas palavras, é uma agitação social que tem a ver com o comportamento de certos grupos que, no fim desse processo, acabam demonizados pela sociedade em geral, pela opinião pública e, principalmente, pela mídia. Foi o caso dos Mods e Rockers nos anos 70, mas podemos citar exemplos mais atuais. O que a mídia fez com os gays durante a epidemia de AIDS nos anos 80/90. Quando pastores vêm na TV e dizem que isso e aquilo, como o RPG, por exemplo, são coisa do demônio. A demonização e santificação dos personagens da Lava-Jato atualmente, gerando reações populares agressivas e apaixonadas num nível estratosférico. Mas nenhuma delas exemplifica melhor o pânico moral do que a cobertura da mídia e a reação social a respeito das Jornadas de Junho de 2013, também conhecidas como as Manifestações dos 20 Centavos, em que a mídia tentava tachar os manifestantes como "vândalos, vândalos, vândalos!". Criaram, assim, um pânico social a manifestantes/vândalos e manifestações políticas com pessoas mascaradas, ou seja, facilmente culpabilizadas e identificáveis. Isso levou à ação do poder público que não tardou em acionar força policial excessiva para "conter" as manifestações. Tudo isso está descrito no livro de Cohen, que estabelece as diversas fases da concepção, estruturação e estabilização dos pânicos morais usando como exemplo as batalhas entre os Mods e os Rockers que, se forem do interesse do pesquisador, podem ser "transplantadas" para outros casos em outros contextos. No caso das Jornadas de Junho de 2013, as fases do Pânico Moral são ainda mais escandalosamente identificáveis que o próprio exemplo-mor do autor. Por isso, fica aparente a riqueza desse livro e desses conceitos de "demonização popular" e de "pânico moral". Fatos como esses que não param de acontecer todos os dias em nossa sociedade, seja na China, Myanmar, Estados Unidos, França, mas acho que principalmente no Brasil, por todo nosso contexto formativo, identitário e religioso-midiático. Isso é burro. Isso é triste. Isso é manipulação popular da mais purinha, viu?!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew the term "Folk Devils" from my sociology studies, and had always meant to read this book when I was studying (30 years ago) but never got round to it. However I thought I ought to go back to the source, especially with the new folk devils and moral panics we have today.

What was a revelation to me was the way the whole thing had been worked up by the press - much as they do today. I remember reading the reports at the time, and had imagined wide-scale rioting, like we saw in the early 1980s, rather than a few disaffected youths milling around looking for something to do on a wet weekend.

The excessive punishment and police brutality were also well described in the book - and although somewhat dry in places I found that Cohen, having been there at the time lent a sense of immediacy to the narrative.

[Tucker]

Cohen wrote a PhD thesis in the late 1960s on this topic and turned it into this book in 1972.

A moral panic casts someone as an enemy ("easily denounced, with little power") and someone else as a victim ("someone with whom you can identify"), and a "consensus" that whatever is occurring is not an isolated incident but means something greater. The mob whips itself up, and public figures must "share their moral revulsion but also distance themselves from the mob," presenting themselves as a "rational polity" of moral disapproval. The mass media controls how we perceive events, so "the relative seriousness of so many different social problems cannot be easily shifted," and moral panics are "condensed political struggles" for that cultural control. That's from his intro to the 3rd edition (2002).

I noted his comment in Chapter 2 that "the question of 'is it news' becomes as important as 'is it real?'" He's saying the media wants to frame a narrative.

In Chapter 6, he says it's hard to image that "moral indignation" is ever "solely moral" and isn't about the judge's interests in their own "life and behaviour," like their private property.

And in the book's penultimate paragraph: "It is not enough to say that witches should not have been burnt or that in some other society or in another century they might not have been called witches; one has to explain why and how certain people get to the stake now."

But also in his 2002 intro, he says that "liberals, radicals and leftists" refuse "to take public anxieties seriously" when they assume that all moral panics exaggerate a problem, and thus do they "downgrade traditional values and moral concerns" in pursuit of "a politically correct agenda." OK, that's a disappointing comment, whatever.

A distinction he makes that's important to me right now: He says moral panics are inherently brief. Panics are brief; you can't panic forever. I'm not sure, then, what to call something that's like a moral panic but extends for years — permanent scapegoating?

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

While still a great intro into the subject, it's outdated by a LOT since more prominent works on social constructivism and just generally comparing something like a youth identity rather than focusing on something such as lgbt, being black in the 60s etc, that could have led to a much greater study than the one presented. For an introduction into criminological thinking, though, it serves well. Further reading is definitely a must.

[Abdulrahman]

This is one of them timeless books, felt like it was contemporary despite its publishing date. Great stuff.

[Liam Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't expect any more than a dry explication of what 'moral panics' were. I didn't even know the subtitle ('Mods and Rockers') when I got it out of the library. But it was, at the end of it, most interesting as an historical case study of this particular youth culture.

It was written only a decade after the height of the two yoof movements, and unearths sources of such exquisitely brutal Middle-England sentiment that it's comical to read in sober retrospect. Especially to note that it was all wholly in reaction to some bored teenagers milling about on the coast (NOT rioting, fucking, stabbing popping pills and crashing storefronts on scooters, as some remember it). The exploitation and police brutality is, however, less amusing.

It's a fine reminder of how the baby boomers once felt much like our generation feel about them. Even if the 'folk devil' figures persist in the form of paedophile rings, terrorists, student anarchists etc, there is comfort in how we have at least embraced the idea of youth culture as something exciting. Though Cohen ends on a realistically unhopeful note (he had yet to see the truly inventive 'Satanic Cult' panics of the 90s), it would be blind to say that nothing has changed.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this in a charity shop and decided to try it out.
This is a really interesting study on mods and rockers during the mid-twentieth century. It discusses media bias and the changing of facts to fit an overall mass hysteria narrative. I found this very informative but repetitive at times. I think the research for this book can be applied to lots of other groups in the UK and how they are presented in the media.

[Mad Medico · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ur-text on moral panics covers a lot of useful ground on the topic by analysing the Mods and Rockers phenomenon specifically to demonstrate the development of moral panics, how they are propogated and their internal contradictions. Cohen uses both theories of deviance amplification (where deviance is viewed as a socially determined categorisation, the reaction to which amplifies the initial stimulus) and the disaster sequence (first developed to analyse natural disasters, where a warning and threat stage are followed by the impact (the disaster itself), which is first understood through the inventory stage, followed by the reaction: first rescue and remedy stages where informal and later formal methods of resolving the crisis are put into action, and a later recovery stage where recovery or adaptation to the disaster occurs) - the deviance amplification model is used to discuss the wider, macro-view of moral panics, where the disaster sequence is used for individual events.
Cohen's use and criticism of the disaster sequence is as follows (it is in reference to the Mods and Rockers pheonomenon but also applies to moral panics more broadly):
◯ Warning and Impact: The propogation of exxagerated rumours and misleading inventories of 'troublemakers' by the media made people more susceptible to panic; any wrongdoing was amplified by said media, which inscentivised bad behaviour and made news out of non-stories; police actions were based on situational logic and often overzealous, increasing the appearance of persecution among the out-group.
◯ Inventory: The media exaggerated wrongdoing and reported selectively, giving a much worse impression of the events than what actually occurred; the actors were symbolized in order to simplify the stories and generate a uniform characterisation of events which sharpened the image of reality.
◯ Reaction: Responses to the phenomenon were most often based on incomplete, incorrect or distorted information which led to the public supporting punitive and non-standard reactions, as the Mods and Rockers were depicted as unprecedented and beyond the ability of the accepted control agents to control; suprious attributions were made to other social issues, and the public discourse often articulated contradictory views (such as that the phenomenon was a sign of both the increasing affluence of the youth and the breakdown of society; or that there were widespread problems among youth and youth culture, and that most young people were not like those involved in disturbances).
◯ Rescue and Remedy: Through sensitization, attention was shifted from beyond Mods and Rockers when they did not appear, with other alternative groups used as a target of displaced outrage and reaction (e.g. beatniks and beach sleepers not involved in the 'violence' were targeted); the police and courts used overzealous and unprecedented methods to deal with the 'problem', such as the unusual use of remand in order to give young offenders a taste of imprisonment and juries, judges and observers using and responding to sensationalised language and dramatised proselytizing; conservative moral entrepreneurs sought to create a new control culture in the face of what they perceived as a totally new and unprecedented form of deviance, generally advocating for new and unusual control methods; the deviance is itself the target of commercial exploitation, with the media and assorted capitalists aiming to profit from the situation through commercial exposure and revenue from marketable commodities (photojournalists encouraging youths to 'act up' for the cameras, businesses branding to appeal to Mods and Rockers or selling related paraphernalia) while simultaneously advocating for harsher methods of control to counter the deviant behaviour they sought to profit from.
This analysis is incredibly useful for identifying the phases of other moral panics, with the hysterical media and political campaigns against asylum seekers and trans people being the most relevant at this current moment. My main criticisms are with the introduction (which would have worked better as a postscript and which dismissed too readily left-wing theories of media manipulation and control of moral panics as a tool to control directing the focus, anger and political will of the masses towards acceptable targets), and of the pessimism with which the author treats the potential of limiting the prevalence of moral panics - I would have been interested in a perspective on the development of a democratic, proletarian mass culture which could direct and mobilise anger to the right places.

[Ben Peyton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a detailed study of the mod and rockers "riots" that happened at sea-side resorts in England over various weekends in the late-1960s. These "riots" were not really riots but basically a bunch of bored and disaffected teenagers running amok. But politicians, the media, and "moral entrepreneurs" used these events to their own aims. The book mostly focuses on the details surrounding these events and how they were used to create a moral panic around the mods and rockers. It goes into a lot of detail and uses different lenses to look at how the moral panic was created and the creation of folk devils and folk heroes. I thought the book would try and tie these events to other moral panics and show how those were similar but it doesn't really. My main take-away is how there is a cycle the media uses to create moral panics. It takes outliers events, exaggerates their importance/frequency/likelihood, creates someone or some group that is responsible for this event, asks why the people in charge aren't doing anything to combat this group, which creates more animosity towards the folk devil group, resulting in more and more panic.

[aa · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you decide to read this, ensure you pick up the third edition.

Since this book has become a classic in Criminology and Sociology, the concept of "moral panic" has taken on a life of its own. Cohen's notes in that third edition temper some of the uglier, more reductive forms of that discourse.

For example, he basically admits that "panic" was bad word choice, since it suggests a unruly, irrational mob. We can see this in how everyone uses "moral panic" to describe perceived public outrage that they don't like.

Again, check out the third edition if you're going to read this one.

[Stewart Lindstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick and interesting read about the public reaction to the Mods and Rockers in the 1960s UK. I read this in order to teach Cohen's theories of deviance and moral panic to 8th graders alongside S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. The usual problems with pop sociology books arise here. Oversimplification, disengagement that isn't always convincing. But there's no doubt that Cohen sparked something here. His insights are no less relevant today.

[Edward Janes · Rating 3 out of 5]

About the moral panics that arise at different times when something serious but isolated gets blown out of proportion and groups become stigmatised. However the blurb reads as if about all manner of groups when 95% on the Mods and Rockers of the 60s.

[Britt O'Duffy]

An incredibly interesting sociological text. I gave the first two chapters a close read and skimmed the rest (hence the dnf) as the main pieces that were pertinent to me were in the origins of the theory

[Hillary Smith-Maddern · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m giving this four stars for the content and the effort it took to research and triangulate this data. That said, for what is ostensibly very interesting subject matter, this reads like someone’s slogging grad school interpretation.

[Aivaras Žukauskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5.

Not the most engaging read in terms of the writing style, but it does provide a fascinating glimpse into the anatomy of mass panic production and internal dynamics. Not much has changed since the 60s when you think about it.

[szymborskalyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very insightful at all.

[Simon Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as fantastic as I thought it would be when I first learnt of the book whilst studying sociology.

Explains a lot about the British media and it’s culture of fear.

[Brandon McNeice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics is a groundbreaking exploration of the social dynamics that lead to widespread fear and exaggerated perceptions of certain groups as "threats" to societal values. Originally published in the 1970s, this sociological classic remains highly relevant, offering timeless insights into how media, politics, and public opinion collaborate—often unconsciously—to construct “folk devils” that serve as scapegoats during times of anxiety or change.

Cohen’s case studies, like the sensationalism surrounding the Mods and Rockers, illustrate the intricate mechanisms behind moral panics, showing how relatively minor incidents can snowball into major societal crises in the public eye. His concept of "moral panic" and the subsequent amplification by media still resonates today, as we witness similar phenomena in various cultural and political contexts. The book provides a fascinating look at the psychology and sociology behind these events, giving readers a framework to understand the recurrent cycles of fear and condemnation in society.

What makes Folk Devils and Moral Panics especially compelling is Cohen’s sharp, insightful writing and his balanced, objective approach. He manages to criticize the machinery behind moral panics without dismissing the genuine fears and concerns that often fuel them. This book is not only a seminal work in sociology but also essential reading for anyone interested in media studies, psychology, or social behavior. Cohen’s work equips readers with the tools to critically evaluate today’s news and public discourse, making it an invaluable guide to navigating modern “moral panics.”

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers takes the reader from folk devils such as the Mods and Rockers and on a path to understanding how folk devils and moral panics are manufactured up to what we might call today's folk devils such as benefit cheats, illegal immigrants and trade union leaders.

This was originally written as Cohen's Phd thesis which means that it is very dense, academic and formal. You probably won't be reading this in your leisure time but for an understanding of the sociology of moral panics and deviance look no further because this book will deliver that and more.

Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers is a social science classic and is fully deserving in that sense. The book provides a contextual backdrop to the youth in the 60‘s for some kind of idea of how the Mods and Rockers came to be folk devils. Students of sociology, media or the social sciences in general would probably be the book's target audience.

 

[Tom Schulte · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very disappointing read, as it is a Phd thesis bloated out to book length by lengthy preface material and other commentary and notations. Still, as to the '64-'66 Brighton Beach, etc. Mods vs. Rockers bank holiday riots, it appears the research was Much Ado About Nothing. There never was such riots. Incidental hooliganism was originally hyped in over reporting and probably had nothing to do with Mods or Rockers, just ennui and juvenile delinquency. The reporting drove Mods, Rockers, and spectators with spectators apparently being the most numerous out to the venues and anything that did happen after that was hardly a riot and just the unintended consequences of yellow journalism and a gullible public with nothing to do on holidays.

it is hard not to think of this book that examined the effect of reporting on expected violence and things unfolding in Ferguson.

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 4 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessibly-written, analytical examination of the phenomenon of moral panics, first published in 1970 in the wake of a British fearfest centered on youth violence. It's unfortunately as timely today as it was then, and maybe it helps me understand why the legislature of my state is obsessed with immigrants and transgendered people?

[Pete daPixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr Cohen's work is perhaps a masterpiece of social science writing, however, as such, it's a bit like eating cardboard for my taste. However, as I can remember well the days of mods & rockers and moral panics, I managed to stay the course. "Birch 'em, or a spell in the army is what they need!"

[Bleedingorange]

too challenging for my poor english...

[Cliodhna Ni Ghadhra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction, but theoretically less relevant and empirically outmoded. Not as comprehensive as Goode and Ben-Yehuda.

[Lucy Leitner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was not what you'd call a riveting page-turner, but it was an interesting in-depth look at a recurring phenomena. It was easy to understand and thorough.

[Mara]

This is such an actual book although it was written over 3 decades ago...