Y10201-Moral Panic by Ms Sally STANTON https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2 Find examples of Moral Panic in this week's online newspapers and post links. Once you have identified an article, try to apply News Values too in your comment as well as explain why this is an example of Moral Panic en-us 2020-03-01 06:22:21 UTC 2025-09-10 05:46:52 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f633.png Arnav, Adrian, Bronson and Aashika https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/454099420 What is moral panic?
Moral panic is an exaggerated and irrational overreaction by society to a perceived problem. The reaction enlarges the problem out of all proportion to its real seriousness. This concept and term was first introduced to us through the research of Stanley Cohen.

How has our chosen news article created moral panic?
The Olympics is an event which is held every 4 years and is watched across the globe. A major event like this does not usually postpone. The Covid 19 virus has spread a lot of irrational and widespread panic amongst citizens all over the world. The virus threatens the safety of everyone in not just our community, but society at large. The news values associated with this particular news article are as follows:
  1. Immediacy - the outbreak of the new Covid-19 coronavirus is quite recent, newspapers are all covering any news about the virus because it has “just happened” and it is a current affair that everyone is concerned and talking about
  2. Familiarity - we can all relate to any news about the virus as everyone is currently facing the consequences, with schools being suspended, services being shut down, everyone is facing some kind of problem, so news about the olympics being postponed is something we can all understand.
  3. Amplitude - the olympics is probably one of the biggest events on the planet, it involves several countries hence there are a lot of people who will be affected by hearing this news.
  4. Surprise - it may come as a shock to many people that one of the world’s biggest events has to be postponed as this is usually something that doesn’t happen, also the fact that such a big event is being postponed will only create more moral panic amongst citizens’ because there will be more growing concern about the seriousness of the virus.
Analysing the use of ‘moral panic’ in our chosen news article
It’s hard to pinpoint the use of ‘moral panic’ in the BBC’s writing has a neutral perspective. The BBC is a statutory corporation which is independent from direct government intervention. In terms of where they are on the political bias chart, the BBC is placed in the mainstream section. This means that the BBC has minimal political bias and it focuses more on the analytical side of news. The news about the 2020 Olympics being postponed by all means stirs moral panic on its own because it’s quite a shocking piece of news that no one was really expecting. As mentioned before, postponing such a huge event will only cause growing concern amongst citizens’ and people will start spreading the news that even big events like the Olympics are having to be postponed. Despite the BBC’s efforts to simply place facts on the table, it seems as though the article may be trying to keep ‘moral panic’ minimal by enforcing the fact that the government is “trying their best” to keep things in control. Evidence to prove this point: 

‘Seiko Hashimoto says Tokyo 2020 organisers are "doing all we can" to make sure the Games go ahead as planned’

‘“We are doing all we can to ensure that the Games go ahead as planned," Hashimoto added.’

‘"We will continue to support the athletes and their NOCs with regular updates of information, which we will provide," Bach added.’

The article uses a lot of positive and hopeful language to juxtapose the grave seriousness of the issue, it's as though the article has been written to reassure fans that the Olympics will be completely fine and that the issue will be resolved soon.

]]> 2020-03-04 03:18:09 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/454099420 Andreas and Nathan https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159849569 How has our chosen news article created moral panic?

Our chosen news article has created moral panic as the SCMP has described Omicron as having brought Hong Kong to its “knees”. When something is on its knees, it usually means whatever is on its knees is about to die, in this case Hong Kong. This is understandably disturbing for the 7.5+ million people currently living in the community on top of the SCMP asking “can the city go back to it’s COVID Zero days”

  1. Immediacy - As the news of Hong Kong’s zero covid program coming to a halt whilst the city is still very much in need of one in place to keep infection rates low, life has been very restricted over the past 2-3 years but such restrictions are about to be lifted which raises the question of the sixth outbreak, with restaurants and businesses having faced a meteor shower of difficulties with reduced capacity and opportunity for business in the time the city is still currently facing.
  2. Familiarity - Everybody knows about the coronavirus and it is common to have relatives or friends who have gotten it. It is an indiscriminate virus in which anyone could have the chance to get infected. This means it is prominent for everyone to know, as well as being very known and familiar to us
  3. Amplitude - The virus is a global pandemic that has had a great impact and influence on governments and society as we live in. A more serious virus would mean more serious actions placed on the people
  4. Surprise - a few months ago HK was seen to be very controlled with the virus, handling it very well with very little controls of the citizens movement and activity. Only in recent months has it become much more serious.
]]> 2022-04-27 06:30:01 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159849569 Andrew and Ethan https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159862524 What Is Moral Panic?
Moral panics are based on fake or exaggerated perceptions or information that transcend the actual threat. This concept was invented by Stanley Cohen in the 1960's and the purpose of this invention was to analyse the social reaction of a social problem


This is a classic example of an article designed to instigate illogical and fallacious moral panic.

As always, there is a grain of truth in this statement- Russia is threatening to attack strategic military locations linked to Her immortal Majesty’s government. However, the phrase “bomb brits” gives off the notion that Russia is posing a threat to UK mainland and everyday, run-of-the-mil British people as a whole, a preposterous, deplorable (to the British), and tactically futile act if it were to be true. To everybody’s relief, it isn't, so no WW3 for today. ]]> 2022-04-27 06:40:25 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159862524 Anselm and Prisha https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159884324 2022-04-27 06:50:06 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159884324 bianca & ivana https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159897539 What is moral panic?
Moral panic is an exaggerated outburst of public concern and fear over the morality or behaviour of a group in society. It is often about an evil person threatening the values, interests or well-being of the society.

How has our chosen news article created moral panic?
Elon Musk has struck a deal with Twitter, and will be taking over the company for $44 billion US dollars. Twitter is an extremely popular online microblogging, news and social networking site, where users post and interact with messages, and communicate in short messages known as ‘tweets’. According to the Forbes magazine, Elon Musk is the world’s wealthiest person, with an estimated net worth of $274 billion. 

For more than a decade, Twitter users have relied on the site’s microblogging and networking services as their source of information. As such, these Twitter users are worried about what is lying ahead for their favourite online platform after the Musk takeover. He has expressed publicly that he considers himself as a ‘free speech activist’, and desires to get rid of the site’s spam bots and authenticate all users. 

According to an article on ‘the Guardian’, doing so would require users to submit some form of identification, which defeats the original purpose of Twitter - anonymity, also creating a ‘risky proposition’ for many users around the world, as the site would have to comply with government requests for data when needed. 

News value of this news article:
  1. Immediacy - Elon Musk’s deal with Twitter has just happened recently and it is new so a lot of newspapers talked about it since it “just happened”
  2. Surprise - The deal was unexpected and unexpected events are more likely to be considered newsworthy, audiences also love surprises
  3. Familiarity - A big amount of people uses Twitter, so Elon Musk taking over Twitter is definitely something that concerns them
  4. Elite people - Elon Musk is someone who is very well-known, so it’s considered newsworthy and receive more attention to people

Analyse the use of moral panic in our chosen news article. 
BBC’s perspective and view on such subjects is very neutral, and they choose to inform its readers rather than subliminally forcing ideas on them. Because of this, it is quite difficult for us to pinpoint where they are on the political stance chart. BBC might be trying to keep moral panic at the bare minimum while simply placing facts into the articles at the same time.


]]> 2022-04-27 07:01:36 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159897539 Mick and Rudy https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159897733 What is moral panic?
Moral panic is an instance of public anxiety that leads to a over-exgaerraterted story in media which makes people believe that a problem or event is much more detrimental to their country/community than it actually is.

How has our articles sparked moral panic?

The language, “Pakistan blast” is a soft exmaple of extereme langauge. 

News values; The news values include…

Impact, Bizarre and conflict.

Impact; This story is very impactful one and people would like to know the relevance of this story and the suicide bombing. The importance of this is promiment as China is showing remorse for the fallen tutors that taught at that school.

Bizzare; It isn’t every day that somone sees an attack that was motivated by the stands in goverment. The BLA which stands for The baloch libertaion army. Which compeled this women to kill herslef to blow up a van, She was most likely thresatned with death.

The article seems pretty neutral if you look at it. From my perspective you can see that the author is clearly trying their best to stay neutral by asking question that aren’t sided. Question like “What is the significance of the Confucius Institutes?” 


]]> 2022-04-27 07:01:48 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159897733 Adrian, John, Marc https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159898136 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10756707/Russia-target-UK-diplomats-Ukraine-capital-British-minister-backs-bombing-Russia.html 

What is Moral panic?
moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society.
How has our chosen news article created moral panic?

The current situation of the war going on with Russia and Ukraine is quite terrifying. Also with Putin stating that they are threatening Britain bring fear to the people to the possibility of world war 3 happening. The word threat tells us that the states are high and anything can happen at any any moment.

The news values that are present  in the news article are: 
  • Immediacy this has just happened
  • Frequency , events such as this never happens
  • Surprise , threatening a country of bombing is a surprise 
  • Elite nations, Russia is a giant country that contributes a lot to the world economy 
  • Negativity , Bombing a country is never a good thing

Analysing the use of ‘moral panic’ in our chosen news article
The article repeatedly states that Russia could bomb Britain in the headline, but expands very little on how Britain minister also threatened to use air strikes on Russian soldiers. This article has other political aims to inspire pity for Ukraine and apprehension against Russia, so their actions for sending heavier military weapons to Ukraine seem a lot more reasonable.  
]]> 2022-04-27 07:02:09 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159898136 Ruby, Ariel and Breanna sylver1 https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159898420 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61239221 

What is moral panic?
Moral panic, a term created by Stanley Cohen, is the exaggerated reaction and fear from the community by the threat that someone or something interferes with the personal values and interests of the individuals, communities or societies.

How has our chosen news article created moral panic?
  • Immediacy
The event article was published on BBC news just less than 24 hours after his execution. The relevancy of this article might come as a shock to the readers, even though he has been on the death penalty for over ten years. 
  • Unexpectancy 
It may come as a shock to everyone as this is something that usually wouldn’t happen. The man was a unique individual that can grasp the viewer’s attention, having an IQ of 69 (a level that most people do not reach). This makes the news much more unpredictable and unexpected.
  • Personalisation
This article is focused on one person which allows them to dive into detail about Nagaenthran. Him having a lower IQ than the others, IQ69, is a personal issue that people wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t stated 
  • Negative news
Death is a sensitive subject for most people, so the execution of a man with a potential mental disability would create some tension and fear. 

Analysing the use of ‘moral panic’ in our chosen news article. 
BBC is quite a neutral-sided platform. It is not run by the British government and is independent. Because of this, it maily informs the readers on the facts and not the opinions. Moral panic is created in this news article because this is an unexpected and shocking piece of news, despite the fact that Nagaenthran has been sentenced to death for over 10 years. This is because many have always believed that he was suffering from an intellectual disability, and that he should not be executed under the international human rights law. It is explained in the article that Singapore has one of the most strict drug laws in the world, as anyone caught carrying over 15g of heroin into Singapore is sentenced to death.  The fact that even after 10 years of committing the offence, the man was still executed, could create fear that Singapore might be even stricter with their death-penalty laws in the future which is concerning for many. Even though BBC is usually a neutral platform, it does provide some quotes and statements that express both left and right sides of the argument. 
For example of an opinion on the left side is from the Singapore government “International law does not prohibit the death penalty and that there is no international consensus on the use of it.” This suggests that Singapore is likely to continue using their death penalty law which mainains the tension for the residents in singapore. “Under Singapore law, he would not have been given the death penalty if the court had found him to be "suffering from an abnormality of mind which substantially impaired his mental responsibility”. This suggests that the Singapore government have already carefully thought this through before deciding on the death penalty.
Another left-sided statement given is that Nagaenthran’s statement was different every time he went to court. 

]]> 2022-04-27 07:02:25 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159898420 Juan, Arnold, Aidan villaj12 https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159900080 What is moral panic?

Moral panic is an exaggerated and Irrational overreaction by society to a perceived problem, this reaction enlarges the problem out of all proportion to its real seriousness. 

How has our chosen news article created moral panic?

Our chosen news article creates panic by emphasising the amount of people (2 billion users) being told to delete the text immediately, the title of the article also has an exaggerated tone, which can be seen from the word “SCRAP-CHAT”.  All whatsapp users are being warned to look out for a dangerous type of scam text.  There are ‘crooks’ on whatsapp who pose as WhatsApp support to entice you into handing over private information, using profile pictures that look official and verified, threatening the safety of everyone who uses whatsapp.  The news values associated with this article are as follows:  
  • Familiarity, we can relate to any news about scammers as it is a common occurrence, with scammers being very common on messaging platforms everywhere.  
  • Size/threshold, size matters when it comes to news stories, the larger the amount of people being affected, the higher the value, the more it will entice people to read about the article.
  • Negative, bad news, the fact that 2 billion users are getting these messages and some of them having their information stolen is negative.  
  • Amplitude, whatsapp is one of the biggest social media applications on the internet, it has a large amount of users, therefore a lot of people will be affected by hearing this news.  
Analysing the use of ‘moral panic’ in our chosen news article?

We can see in the article that the writer uses “Crooks are now posing as Whatsapp Support” this quote on quote shows the reader panic by using the word as “crooks”, which in this article we basically are given steps to show how to fix the scam and what we are supposed to do if we do get scammed. It’s as if the article uses an overexaggerated title to pull in the audience and uses words such as “2 BILLION” which only ended up being an instruction of how to prevent the scam.                           

]]> 2022-04-27 07:03:45 UTC https://padlet.com/southisland/i2ls7qbo1ku2/wish/2159900080