Crime and Deviance - Crime and the Media

Question 1

Williams and Dickinson (1993) and newspapers:

Answer 1

Crime and deviance makes up a great deal of media coverage, up to 30% of British newspapers are dedicated to crime.

Question 2

How does media coverage of crime corrupt reality?

Answer 2

• Over-representation of violent and sexual crimes
• Portrayal of criminals and victims as older and more middle-class
• Exaggeration of police success
• Exaggeration of risk of victimisation, especially against women, white people and higher status people
• Lack of examination of structural causes of crime
• Overplaying of extraordinary crime

Question 3

Ditton and Duffy (1983) and violent andsexual crime:

Answer 3

46% of media reporsr are about violent or sexual crimes, compared to only 3% of crimes reported by police.

Question 4

Felson (1998) and age:

Answer 4

Media often reports those involved in the criminal justice system (victim and offender) as older and more middle-class than is regular - this is called the ‘age fallacy’.

Question 5

Why does the media exaggerate police success?

Answer 5

• The police are the major source of information so present themselves in a positive light
• The media over-represents violent crime which has higher clear-up rates than property crime
• The media wishes to maximise viewership by telling a ‘good story’ with a satisfying end

Question 6

Felson (1998) and the extraordinary:

Answer 6

The media mainly focusses on crimes that are irregular and make their audience believe that criminals are more daring and clever than they really are - known as the ‘dramatic fallacy’ and the ‘ingenuity fallacy’ respectively.

Question 7

How has portrayal of crime changed?

Answer 7

• Schlesinger and Tumber (1994): rising crime rates and the abolition of the death penalty lead to the decline of coverage for petty crime in the 90’s, crimes needed to be exciting, like terrorism
• Soothill and Walby (1991): there is increasing preoccupation with sex crimes, coverage increasing by more than 50% since 1951, often trying to identfy a ‘sex fiend’ through labels, resulting in the false perception of rapists as psychopath strangers

Question 8

Cohen and Young (1972) and construction:

Answer 8

The news is not something that exists out there to be discovered, it is constructed - it is manufactured. There is a social process that filters out story from ‘news’.

Question 9

Cohen and Young (1972) and ‘News Values’:

Answer 9

‘The News’ is manufactured based on multiple criterion that decides whether a story is newsworthy, known as ‘News Values’:
- Immediacy
- Dramatisation
- Personalisation
- Higher-status people
- Simplification
- Novelty
- Risk
- Violence

Question 10

Mandel (1984) and thrillers:

Answer 10

Fictional media is an important part of our understanding of crime - more than 10bn crime thrillers have been sold worldwide, and crime TV takes 20% of films.

Question 11

Surette (1998) and the ‘law of opposites’:

Answer 11

Fictional representations follow the ‘law of opposites’, they portray the opposite of official statistics:
- Property crime is underrepresented and violent, drug, and sex crime are overrepresented
- Fictional cops are usually successful
- Fictional sex crime is comitted by pyschopathic strangers, rather than acquaintances

Question 12

Give one example of media being held responsible for crime.

Answer 12

The Comics Code Authority was created in the US in 1954 as a means of regulating the content that could be shown, creating a ‘silver age’ of comics that were much less grim to influence children less.

Question 13

Give three ways that the media may cause crime?

Answer 13

• Imitation: by providing deviant role models to the impressionabke
• Desensitisation: making crime appear normal through constantly showing it
• Arousal - by showing violent and sexual imagery

Question 14

Schramm et al (1961) and the negative effects of media on children:

Answer 14

Agreeing with most other studies, they say that: for some it is good, for some it is bad, for most its not particularly either.

Question 15

How doesn’t the truth of the effects of media on children matter?

Answer 15

The idea still prevails despite evidence, Livingstone (1996) argues that people continue to focus on media’s effect on children because we regard it as a golden age of uncontaminated innocence.

Question 16

How may media cause a fear of crime?

Answer 16

Media overrepresents certain kinds of impactful crime, like sexual and physical violence, towards certain overrepresented groups, like women and the elderly - this causes a distorted vision of reality (Postmodernism) that leads people to fear that the will be victimised despite the lack of likelihood.

Question 17

Schlesinger and Tumber (1992) and fear of crime:

Answer 17

There is a positive correlation between fear of crime and media consumption, with heavy users of tabloids and TV being more afraid of physical attack and mugging.

Question 18

Greer and Reiner (2012) and criticising fear of crime:

Answer 18

Much of the research into the correlation between fear of crime and media consumption ignores the meanings that people give to violence in different medias, like cartoons and the news, which will have different effects.

Question 19

What is the effect of the media for left realists?

Answer 19

Lea and Young (1996): The media, by more frequently showing people wealthy lifestyles, exacerbates social inclusion (the idea of living the ‘good life’) whilst not aiding their economic exclusion, this exacerbates relative deprivation and causes more people to commit utilitarian crime and non-utilitarian crime to vent frustrations.

Question 20

Give a criticism of the Left realist perspective on media.

Answer 20

It struggles with Young’s (2002) ‘second aetiological’ crisis as, we as a society have not become less media saturated (in fact, postmodernists would argue that we are so deeply media saturated that we can’t tell what is and isn’t reality) but we have seen crime drop by 90% in the last 30 years.

Question 21

What is cultural criminology?

Answer 21

Cultural criminologists argue that the media commodifies crime and turns it into something that people consume for its own sake, not to achieve an end like ameliorating relative deprivation.

Question 22

Hayward and Young (2012) and late modern society:

Answer 22

Late modern society is highly media-saturated, where an ever-expanding flow of digital images blurs the line between reality and image of crime, so they are no longer distinct - this then creates crime as a media performance. Additionally, hyper-consumerism encourages people to commit crime ‘for the thrill’, rather than any of the traditional benefits.

Question 23

Give an example of cultural criminologists ‘media performances’.

Answer 23

Gang fights aren’t just caught on camera anymore, but actually staged for cameras as a means of gangs increasing their status, thus media then creates crime.

Question 24

Fenwick and Hayward (2000) and the commodification of crime:

Answer 24

The effect of the comodification fo crime is especially problematic for the impressionable young , for whom ‘crime is packaged and marketed to as an exciting and fashionable cultural symbol.’

Question 25

Give an example of the commodification of crime.

Answer 25

Hayward and Young not car commercials including street riots, joy riding and pyromania. Even countercultures and commodified to appear cool and subversive, with graffiti now sold as part of 'guerilla marketing' techniques called 'brandalism'.

Question 26

Cohen (1972) and the process of the deviance amplification spiral:

Answer 26

- Moral entrepreneurs disapprove of certain actions and campaign against it - This stirs up fear about that action and causing a moral panic involving - The societal fear leads to a government ‘crackdown’ on the group associated with the behaviour - Those in the group are discriminated against and marginalised, pushing them further into the group for solidarity and comfort, strengthening the group identity - The strengthened identity of the group causes greater societal fear

Question 27

What is a moral panic?

Answer 27

A moral panic is an over-exaggerated reaction to a problem by society (often promoted by the media), this often involves the identification and negative labelling of a 'folk devil', or group associated with the behaviour. Cohen (1972) argues that the media is especially important in large-scale societies as we have less direct contact with events soc rely on them.

Question 28

According to Cohen (1972), what was the role of the media in the moral panic for the Mods and Rockers?

Answer 28

Cohen (1972) argues that the media that the media will produce an inventory of what happened in the event of any deviance, including: - Distortion: the media exaggerate the numbers involved and extent of violence, even reporting a lack of news as 'towns holding their breath' - Prediction: the media regularly predicted further violence, increasing public fear - Symbolisation: the media negatively labelled all symbols associated with either group, allowing them to draw connections to unrelated events and create fear of an 'epidemic'

Question 29

How did the media create a deviance amplification spiral for the Mods and Rockers?

Answer 29

The increased fear led to greater campaigning of 'moral entrepeneurs', this led to a harsher crackdown on both groups - the social and formal stigmatisation caused them to retreat into their groups and do further crime. Additionally, it broadcasted the conflict to the British public, leading many young people to engage with the identity as a means of rebellion, only knowing them based on their crimes and conflict so only engaging with those parts.

Question 30

When are moral panics most common?

Answer 30

Cohen (1972) argues that moral panics occur during great social change as people experience anomie and a 'boundary crisis' occurs, uncertainty over what is an isn't aceptable, with the media symbolising these anxieties as a 'folk devil'.

Question 31

How is Cohen (1972) useful?

Answer 31

Cohen can help us to explain reactions to different outrage movements within society, such as the rise in transphobia and xenophobia.

Question 32

Give a criticism of Cohen's (1972) moral panics.

Answer 32

McRobbie and Thornton (1995) argue that, in late modernity, we are so media-saturated and constantly bombaded with fear mongering that moral panics are now routine and less impactful. Additionally, they have more trouble finding a base as there is less consensus over what is deviant.

Question 33

Jewks (2003) and cyber crime:

Answer 33

The internet provides opportunities to commit bot 'conventional crimes' like fraud, as well as 'new crimes using new tools', like software priacy.

Question 34

Wall (2001) and the four categories of cybercrime:

Answer 34

- Cyber-trespass: crossing boundaries into others’ cyber property - Cyber-deception and threat, such as identity theft - Cyber-pornography: illegal pornography or access to pornography by those not legally allowed (children) - Cyber-violence: psychological harm or inciting physical harm

Question 35

What is the issue with the internet and crime?

Answer 35

It makes criminals much more difficult to catch, as they are able to commit crimes from anywhere in the world, making extradition difficult for low-level crimes, and can automate it to commit large-scale crimes very quickly.

Question 36

How can the new technology make crime easier to solve?

Answer 36

Jewkes (2003) argues that new ICT can aid the police with greater surveillance and control of the population, such as CCTV, digital fingerprintes, internet service providers keeping data (Snoopers Charter).