Satanic Panic in the 21st Century: The 80s and the Panics of Today

In this book, Anna J. Brecke offers an overview of the Satanic Panic and QAnon movements as they are represented in a variety of media forms and contextualized by the social and cultural trends that informed each movement.

When it is remembered, the Satanic Panic is often dismissed as a cultural fluke that flared during the Reagan era in America and quickly disappeared. This book asks why we were so quick to move on from the 80s panic that was so prevalent in popular culture for over a decade, and where similar themes have recently resurfaced in the QAnon movement. Brecke provides a survey of the fiction and non-fiction treatments in popular culture that represent both, and offers sociocultural context for the spread of conspiratorial thinking through various media forms that perpetuate rumors and stoke public hysteria around the alleged threat of Satanism in America. Old and new media alike are complicit in the recuperation and interrogation of the 80s panic, as well as being responsible for representations of current panic themes today.