The publication of Fitzgerald and Smoczynski’s article on societal reactions to polish labour migrants in the United Kingdom provides an important opportunity to refl ect on theoretical and conceptual advances that have been made in the sociology of moral panic. Conventional perspectives conceptualise panic episodes as exceptional rather than ordinary claims-making activities that amplify devia...

This paper explicates a critical theory of moral panic, arguing that there is an afŽ nity to be discerned between the sociology of moral panic and the sociology of moral regulation. It is demonstrated how efforts to distance sociological investigations of moral regulation from studies of moral panic have been founded on a narrow treatment of the ways in which the latter have conceptualized pani...

This article examines British societal reactions to Polish migrant workers using a framework that combines recent developments of the moral panic concept informed by the sociology of moral regulation and risk governance studies. Given the multi-mediated nature of contemporary moral panics and in contrast to conventional analysis focusing on newspaper coverage this article is based on Polish mig...

New wave public health places an emphasis on exhorting individuals to engage in healthy behaviour with good health being a signifier of virtuous moral standing, whereas poor health is often associated with personal moral failings. In effect, the medical is increasingly being collapsed into the moral. This approach is consistent with other aspects of contemporary neolibe...

Violence perpetrated by people experiencing mental illness poses a continuing challenge to practitioners and policy makers in the mental health field. It has been suggested, however, that policy developments in England during the period 1990--2000 became unduly dominated by the perceived need to prevent such violence and in particular that a 'moral panic' occurred following a series of high pro...