Product Description

Cohen's classic study of 'deviant' subcultures and the 'moral panic' they generate is reissued with a new author's introduction commenting on the demonization of asylum seekers and on the recent 'name and shame' campaign against paedophiles.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38798 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-19
• Format: Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
'Stan Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panics was a brilliant and subtle exercise in grounded theory. It has proved consistently fertile for a great deal of new work in sociological analysis the thirty years since its first publication and its critical idea of moral panics proved to be generative for a wide variety of scholars and research fields. In the new introduction to the third edition, an original piece of reflection on the vicarious pathways of its appropriation, and a wonderful reprise of its uses and abuses, Stan Cohen gently but steadily guides us back to its original illuminating intellectual core.' - Stuart Hall, Emeritus Professor, The Open University, UK

From the Back Cover
Folk Devils and Moral Panics is a classic study of 'deviant' subcultures and the 'moral panic' they generate in the media and in public debate. 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 selecy bibliography of key texts for further reading. The third edition of Folk Devils and Moral Panics makes available a valuable and widely recommended text.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive and Readable Guide to the Topic
This is obviously the reference work on the phenomenon of moral panics and as such essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the topic. As a work of social science it can be hard going at times and is probably not for the casual reader, however those with a reasonable understanding of the subject area will find it a generally very readable work.

The new introduction for the third edition is also an excellent review of some of the moral panics of the last few years.