Folk Devils and Moral Panics in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Morena Tartari is Associate Professor of Criminology and Policing in the Department of Social Sciences of Northumbria University, United Kingdom. She is a former Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow (University of Antwerp, Belgium). Her research has explored social issues including moral panics surrounding satanic ritual abuse, the stigmatisation of single mothers in institutional contexts, non-religious identities, practices and values, parenting cultures and digital risks and crimes. She is the author of several publications on the topic of moral panic. She is an active member of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.Cirus Rinaldi is Associate Professor of Sociology of Law, Deviance, and Social Change in the Department of Cultures and Societies of the University of Palermo, Italy, where he also coordinates the Bodies, Rights and Conflicts Research Group. His research explores deviance theory, sociological theories of sexuality, male sex work and LGBTQI+ issues. He is the author of the books Sesso, Sè e Società. Per una sociologia delle sessualità (2016) and Uomini che si fanno pagare: Genere, identità e sessualità nel sex work maschile tra devianza e nuove forme di normalizzazione (2020) in addition to many journal articles and contributions to edited collections.Cosimo Marco Scarcelli is Associate Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication in the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology at the University of Padua, Italy, where he is also the Director of the BD Communication Programme. His research explores sexuality, gender, masculinities, digital culture, pornography, intimacies, love, emotions, and young people. He is particularly interested in qualitative and participatory research. He is the principal editor of Gender and Sexuality in the European Media (Routledge, 2021), associate editor of The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication (Wiley, 2020), and author of numerous journal articles. He is also an editor of the Journal of Gender Studies.

• Folk devils and moral panics in the COVID-19 pandemic: An introduction 1. Ten dimensions of dispute over moral panic theory in an age of COVID 2. COVID-19 in social problems marketplaces 3. The ‘crazies’ are panicking’. High-vis folk devils and the co-opting of moral panic in Australia 4. Understanding the protest movements against the COVID-19 public policy in France as a moral panic 5. Moral panics and health-related misinformation: When the audience becomes co-producer 6. Framing social drama: Panic, protest and the Canadian trucker convoy 7. Mutuality vs freedom: Competing moral panics in the UK debate over the wearing of masks during the pandemic 8. Voices of reason, voices of moralization. Analysing moralising discourse in scientific claims in news media in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden, 2020-2022 9. Neo-liberal background of pandemic-related moral panic in Polish press discourse 10. “Infected migrants”: The Italian political discourse about immigration during the pandemic: a renewed moral panic? Folk Devils and moral panics in the COVID-19 pandemic: Final remarks

“By applying the analytical tools of moral panic, a group of dedicated first-rate interdisciplinary scholars shine fresh new and innovative lights on global reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Readers will thus find a fascinating and positively reinforcing learning experience.”Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Professor of Sociology, The Hebrew University, Israel“This book demonstrates that the concept of moral panic is very much alive and well. Each chapter is essential reading and offers novel ways of understanding the COVID pandemic. This anthology is destined to be a classic piece of scholarship, one that exemplifies what the late Jock Young refers to the criminological imagination.”Walter S. DeKeseredy, Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences, Director of the Research Center on Violence, and Professor of Sociology, West Virginia University, USA“How can we regard concern over an objective medical threat to the health and life of billions of humans as a moral panic? The authors of these fine, informative, and sophisticated essays deftly address this guiding question in their analysis of the COVID-19 outbreaks in eight countries, thereby breaking with “purist” scholars of the moral panic and broadening the concept’s reach. A first-rate contribution to the moral panic literature and a must-read for researchers of social epidemiology.”Erich Goode, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Stony Brook University, USA“Stan Cohen and Stuart Hall’s insights about moral panics revived and astutely applied to the COVID crisis.”Tony Platt, Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Affiliated Scholar, Center for Study of Law and Society, University of California, Berkeley, USA“Folk Devils and Moral Panics in the COVID-19 Pandemic offers a very insightful exploration of moral panics during the COVID-19 pandemic. It brings together an impressive array of multidisciplinary and multi-jurisdictional perspectives and expands the extant literature on moral panics, highlighting their novel manifestations and implications in the current digital age. The book is a must-read for academics, researchers, and students studying the complex intersections of media dynamics and social reactions during periods of significant societal upheaval and transformation.”Pamela Ugwudike, Professor of Criminology, University of Southampton, UK