Jennifer Evans Writes about QAnon in The Conversation
History Professor Jennifer Evans explores QAnon, comparing the moral panic it unleashes on social media with similar threats to the social order throughout history. A short excerpt can be found below with the full article, “Folk devils and fear: QAnon feeds into a culture of moral panic,” online.
Using conspiracy theories that include child sex traffickers and restaurants serving human flesh, QAnon has unleashed a modern-day moral panic.
It is now more than 30 years since sociologists proposed moral panic as a way to understand the incitement of fear around a perceived enemy. In the opening paragraph of his canonical study of popular media from 1972, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, sociologist Stanley Cohen outlined his basic thesis:
Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.
In President Donald Trump’s America, those people are queers, racial minorities and Jews.