CD15 Media and Crime

Question 1

The media’s fictional representation of:

Criminals

Victim

Police

Answer 1

Criminals
Fictional - Super villain, Stupid, Psychopaths, Rational/Planner

Victims
Fictional - Female Victims = Helpless, male victims = vigilante, ethnic minority.

Police
Fictional - Super intelligent, Bumbling idiots, always get the bad guy.

Question 2

The medias real (or factual) representation of:
Criminals

Victim

Police

Answer 2

Criminals - Under class, Ethnic Minorities, Young, Men

Victims - Missing White Woman Sydrome, Selective reporting

Police - Corrupt, Brutality, Racists, Incompetent

Question 3

Values of the media (8 of them)

Answer 3

. The Immediacy of the story
. Dramatisation–action and excitement
. Personalisation -human interest
. Higher Status of the focus of the story.
. Simplification –Black and white, no shades of grey
. Novelty/unexpectedness
. Risk –victim centred stories about vulnerability and fear.
. Violence –Visual and spectacular acts.

Question 4

Dramatization theory by Kidd-Hewitt & Osbourne

Answer 4

Media reports crime as increasingly driven by the need for a spectacle. Spectacles are engaging because audiences become both repelled by the activities but fascinated at the same time.

Question 5

Dramatization theory
Media reports crime as increasingly driven by the need for a spectacle. Spectacles are engaging because audiences become both repelled by the activities but fascinated at the same time.
What sociologists are responsible for this theory?

Answer 5

Kidd-Hewitt & Osbourne

Question 6

Infotainment (theorist)

Answer 6

Postman - Infotainment

Question 7

Law of opposites (theorist)

Answer 7

Surette -
The media shows the direct opposite of official statistic. For example the media focuses on murders and violent crime when most crimes in the UK are property based crimes. The media also shows victims to be more likely to be female when statistics show that young men aged 19 –24 are more likely to be a victim of crime.

Question 8

Functionalism / Pluralism Perspectives on Media influence on crime

Answer 8

In reporting crime the media helps to keep social solidarity.
Crimes reported tend to reflect the things people are most concerned about and most want to see reported, thus they create demand which is met by the media.
Different forms of media report different crimes in different ways, they are not all dominated by a single ideology or small group of owners pushing the same agenda.

Question 9

Marxism Perspectives on Media influence on crime

Answer 9

The reporting of crime reflects the ideology of the ruling class, meaning:The crimes of the ruling class or those at the higher end of society are under-reported.
The media’s emphasis on sexual and violent crime means less importance is attached to some very large and serious white-collar crimes and corporate crimes, which rarely get reported.
Crimes of the working class are over-reported.The reporting of crime is used as a way of maintaining control over powerless groups.

Question 10

Feminism Perspectives on Media influence on crime

Answer 10

Crime reporting reinforces the stereotyping and oppression of women.
Women are portrayed as victims.
Under reporting of violence against women, especially domestic violence.
They are highly critical of reporting of sex crimes against women as a way to provide entertainment.

Question 11

Interpretivists Perspectives on Media influence on crime

Answer 11

The media is a social construction as is crime.
Interpretivists look at the labels attached to people who are determined to be deviant and see the media as a moral entrepreneur which determines who are deviant and who are not.

Question 12

Postmodernism Perspectives on Media influence on crime (theorist)

Answer 12

Baudriallard
Media creates reality –people have no understanding of crime only the representations of crime they experience through the mass media.

Question 13

Missing White Woman Syndrome

Answer 13

The type of victim that is likely to make the news cycle or the media is a white middle class woman as she will fit the stereotype of what they want a victim to be.

Question 14

Hypodermic Syringe Model

Answer 14

Media audiences are passive recipients of the messages from the media and that these messages without critical thought. These messages are acted upon mindlessly by audiences.

Question 15

Moral Panic

Answer 15

An instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society.

Question 16

Deprivation

Answer 16

Media provides unobtainable ideas of lifestyles of the rich and famous which can lead to people commit crime to achieve these lifestyles –e.g. Made in Chelsea

Question 17

Desensitisation

Answer 17

Watching violence in the media can lead to the lowering of peoples level for shock value meaning that they no longer are horrified by it and can be more likely to commit the act themselves.