Chapter 1 - Media and Crime Flashcards
What drives the media?
Profit; sensationalism sells.
What is the cause of the political subtext present in the media?
Political players have vested interest, and the means by way of the media to serve those interests.
What does the media use expert commentary for?
It provides credibility and absolves media of responsibility while also reinforcing a particular ideological position.
What are some ways that the media distorts and exaggerates stories?
Use of plurals, inappropriate use of terminology, misuse of statistics, misleading use of headlines.
The media perpetuates the belief that crime is rising, is this true?
No, over the past 20 years crime has been falling.
Describe the difference between the shotgun approach and the rifle approach, and which does the media use?
Rifle approach targets a very specific part of the population (e.g., males between 24 and 28). Shotgun approach is used to get as many readers/viewers/listeners as possible.
The media uses the shotgun approach.
Words and objects will often become symbolic of ________?
Status. (e.g., Hell’s Angel’s are criminal, Harley Davidson = criminal).
What are the three points of the media trinity of bias.
Race, gender, social class bias.
How are minority victims affected by the media?
Minority victims are often judged and found to be at least somewhat responsible for their victimization.
What is “racial identification”?
Including the race of a victim or offender in a news story when it doesn’t matter at all.
How are minority/lower socioeconomic groups portrayed in the media?
As inherently criminal and problematic.
What gender is criminal correlated with?
Male.
How is male association with crime a slippery slope?
Because then males - mostly of lower socioeconomic class or minority - become associated with crime.
What are examples of rape myths?
What was she wearing?
Did she really mean no?
Weren’t they dating anyways?
What was she doing in that area at that time?
What are some of the distorted perceptions caused by the media?
People believe crime is more prevalent than it really is.
Even though people may feel safe, they don’t feel like society is safe.
People often underestimate the severity of punishments.
People underestimate the success of rehabilitative efforts.
