ABSTRACT
Folk devils are thus people whose very existence is socially constructed as posing a negative challenge and a grave threat to morality and who, as a result, provoke feelings of fear. Folk devils must therefore be easily identifiable and made to be salient in the public sphere and mind. The concept of folk devils is primarily associated with moral panics and with concepts of fear, morality and deviance. Fear – and fear of moral challenges particularly – lies at the heart of the social construction of folk devils. As Barry Glassner pointed out, the fear of becoming a victim of crime is one of the central pillars of the culture of fear. Criminals tend to be prime candidates for being viewed as folk devils. While many illustrations for creating folk devils exist, one of the very best is probably the European witch craze of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries.
