Moral panics often arise around events that are in fact relatively trivial in terms of the nature of the act and the number of people involved. They often emerge around publics issues, that are taken as symptomatic of general social disorder.
They are often perpetuated by the media - as they are basically the cultural police and they are saying what's okay and what's not okay.
Recent examples of moral panics are the mens magazines being on show in supermarkets and Miley Cyrus performing at the VMAs.
Counter cultures
Counter cultures are sub cultures whose values and norms of behaviour deviate from those of mainstream society. A counter culture is a group of people who behave in a certain way that society disapprove of. For example in the in the 60's there were hippies and everyone who identified with them, emulated them.
Permanent present
The permanent present is a state that focuses on current events/things that are happening right now.
We can keep on top of this at almost any tint on the day with Twitter, Facebook, news channels, radio, news websites.
We may not be aware but we are reading/watching news all day long, from the minute we get up in the morning, till we go to bed at night, we never stop hearing news.
We wake up and watch Daybreak or Breakfast then in the afternoon there's This Morning and Loose Women, then when we get home there's the 6o'clock news, and then the 10o'clock news, and in between we're on Twitter, on the internet, and maybe listening to the radio in the car, which is where most radio is listened to.
Hegemony
Hegemony is where some assumes power over something. For example Simon Cowell has power over the X-Factor. Simon Cowell will most likely tell people what to wear, what to sing and what to do in order to sell records, and we will end up buying into this probably without even realising it.
