Moral Panic is a term often used by media educators such as Kathleen Tyner to describe over reactionary fears by adults to the media practices of youth. Moral panic is not a partisan issues - progressives and conservatives often come together over this issues.

Social networking sites, certain elements of HipHop culture such as gangsta rap, violent and sexually explicit movies and TV programming, the YouTube culture and gaming are the most sited catalysts for moral panic.

Consider these quotes:

“Hedonistic values and narcissistic identities produce emotionally stunted young people unable to grown up and unwilling to be responsible democratic citizens.

This sense of emptiness of the soul holds for wealthy kids in the vanilla suburbs and poor kids in the chocolate cities. ”

This author goes on to blame theis “spiritual malnutrition” o:

“high use of drugs like cocaine and Ecstasy; the growing poularity of performing sex acts at incredibly young ages; and the way in which so many kids have become addicted to going online and instant messaging or creating Weblogs in which they assume an alternate personality.”

This evidently leads to, “a disgraceful numbing of the senses, dulling of the minds, and confining of life to an eternal present - with a lack of connection to the past and no vision for a different future - an insidious form of soul murder.”

Who do you think wrote this? You may be surprised to know it is Cornell West, often regarded as a progressive democratic thinker and writer and one of the shining stars in the African-American academic community.