By relying on a virtual ethnography approach carried out on Italian-speaking alternative lifestyle and counter-information online communities, this book shows how the nature of personal interactions online and the construction of both personal and group identities, are central to the creation and propagation of medical misinformation.

By relying on a virtual ethnography approach carried out on Italian-speaking alternative lifestyle and counter-information online communities, this book shows how the nature of personal interactions online and the construction of both personal and group identities, are central to the creation and propagation of medical misinformation.

By relying on a virtual ethnography approach carried out on Italian-speaking alternative lifestyle and counter-information online communities, this book shows how the nature of personal interactions online and the construction of both personal and group identities, are central to the creation and propagation of medical misinformation.

Folk Devils and Moral Panics in the COVID-19 Pandemic analyses the phenomena of moral panics surrounding so-called folk devils in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this volume, internationally recognised moral panic scholars from disciplines including sociology, media studies, criminology, and cultural studies examine case studies of moral panics related to the COVID-19 pandemic. These analyses consider the different social, political, economic, organisational, and cultural contexts within which such moral panics emerged and assess how the concept of moral panic can be deployed to offer novel insights into sociocultural responses to the outbreak. By utilising both classical approaches to moral panic analysis and more recent trends, chapters discuss the utility of the concept of moral panic that is, for the first time, applied to a global-scale event like the COVID-19 pandemic. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars in the social sciences with an interest in moral panics, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the media and popular culture.

While the notion of social harm has long interested critical criminologists it is now being explored as an alternative field of study, which provides more accurate analyses of the vicissitudes of life. However, important aspects of this notion remain undeveloped, in particular the definition of social harm, the question of responsibility and the methodologies for studying harm. This book, the first to theorise and define the social harm concept beyond criminology, seeks to address these omissions and questions why some capitalist societies appear to be more harmful than others. In doing so it provides a platform for future debates, in this series and beyond. It will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers across criminology, sociology, social policy, socio-legal studies and geography.

This unique collection explores the continuing invisibility of much crime and victimization, and the lack of adequate responses to them. Shaping the lens through which criminology and victimology is approached in the twenty-first century, the volume examines major issues including (in)justice, risks, rights, regulation and enforcement.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. The digital revolution has transformed the selling and buying of illicit substances, upending how the market is policed and regulated, as explored in this book.