Explain why the decade of the 1980s was such a fruitful period for the emergence of these and other moral panics.

Moral panics are the media exaggerations outburst in the society regarding the misconducts and moral behaviors of a certain group of individuals.  These key examples can be young black men taken to thugs in the street robbing white people or Muslims treated to be terrorists terrorizing non-Muslims in the society.  These are majorly exaggerations of the media, making them appear as reality (Cohen, 2011).  In the 1980s, the media started to make more frequent reports on cases of children who were being raped, murdered, or kidnapped.  This resulted in moral panics over sex defenders and also pedophiles became more intense during the early 1980s.

During this decade, the media had the advantage of exaggerating the issues of immoralities. They became very influential because society was not much enlightened, and the media could direct how society thinks.  During this decade, the media spread inaccurate information, and it was not easy for society to get the reality but rather to consume what the media has given. The media used to model their news to make the society think in a given direction (Stanley, 2011).  For instance, the newspaper "The Sun "gave an outline that the "Muslims hate mob "such highlights are always influential in demonizing the minority group.  

In the 1980s, there was heavy and inaccurate flawed information on the sex offenders as well as their recidivism rate, which were published by the media. The published information resulted in a moral panic over child abduction, and this was then followed by the development of new laws on missing children. Another factor that made moral panic to be common during this decade was that the sex offenders and the pedophiles were the day-care sex hysteria between the 1980s and early 1990s. This resulted in panic, which made the parents hyper-vigilant when it comes to predatory offenders of child sex and abduction of children from school.

How have things changed, for better or worse, today? While technology was certainly very different than available just a few years ago, it is also important to consider the role of dominant political ideologies. What, for example, is gained by creating a moral panic over imagined violence from BLM and "antifa."

Things have changed for good today due to the availability of technology like smartphones and social media, which can help share the actual things as opposed to the news given by the national media, which are modeled to make people think in a particular direction.  With the availability of smartphones and these social media like Facebook, Twitter, people share actual things without any intention to make people think in a particular direction. Again, unlike the 1980s, people today are wise enough, thus giving more attention to the idea than noise in the past decades (Ben-Yehuda, 2019). This being said, the politicians will hence present ideologies and facts as opposed to no brainwashing, which had been witnessed in the past decades (the 1980s).

  Through the creation of moral panic from the BLM and "antifa" resulted in some justice for the black people. Blacks were taken to be thugs; the racial protects of BLM came vividly in summer 2020 when a white police officer killed George Floyd.  Since then, a group has been formed on Twitter to channel the grievances of BLM.  On the other hand, the Antifa is a group that was formed to oppose the grievances that are racist and authoritarian.  The creation of Antifa also helps in restoring justice for people and having justice for all regardless of race.  And channeling these two groups' grievances has been made easier due to the presence of technologies like social media and smartphones.   

What recent examples of criminal or deviant behavior can you think of that might be described as “moral panics”? What is the primary source of the labeling of “demons” in your chosen cases

 Some of the examples of recent criminal or deviant behavior which are considered to be moral panic are explained below;

Black Lives matter

 This became a moral panic in May 2020 when Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, and thereafter it was in almost every media in the world. The death of George Floyd then resulted in a demonstration in  US and also in other countries in the world (Tyner, 2021).   The primary source of this moral panic in 2020 was thus due to the death of George Floyd.

QAnon

 QAnon is a moral panic where a target folk devil is a conservative group.  This moral panic started on a "free speech "in an online forum 4chan with the main reason of spreading the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. These theories are extreme and infiltrated in a significant sub-group of the consecutive electorates. 

 War on Terror

 For a long period of time, terrorist attacks like the terrorist attack in France in July 2016. After this attack, a folk devil was made out of Muslims. The same case happened in US in 2001 where there was a terrorist attack (Tyner, 2021). After these allegations, which were exaggerated by the media, the Muslims faced serious racism, and everyone saw every Muslim as a terrorist, which is not the case.  The primary cause of this moral panic is due to the fact that some terrorist groups lean to Islamic states like ISIS,  Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and Armed Islamic Group.

What kinds of crime are not the subjects of moral panics, and what effect does this have on public perceptions of crime?

  Examples include the following;

Bribery: This is a crime where an individual gives or receives money for a service he or she should access or give freely.  It is not subjected to moral panic since it does not result in any fear and the media exaggerates it. Bribery highly affects society as it is a form of corruption, and it makes society adopt the culture of paying for services they need to get for free.  

Cybercrime: This is a crime where one may steal another person's data or even trick him or her to send them money. Other causes of this crime include introducing viruses to affect other people’s computers and improperly accessing computer networks or systems. This crime is also not a subject of moral panic because there is no media exaggeration (Stanley, 2011).  Cybercrime reduces the trust the society may have in storing their data in online platforms like the cloud.