CRIME AND DEVIANCE - Media and Crime

Question 1

Give Examples of Crime in the Media / Crime as Media! HINT: Name as many as you can; there are 10 Examples here!

Answer 1

• Sherlock
• Criminal Minds
• 911
• Law and Order
• Killing Eve
• Crime-watch
• Silent Witness
• 24 Hours in Police Custody
• Silent Witness
• Police Interceptors
• Blue Lights

Question 2

What does Postman say about Crime? HINT: Infotainment!

Answer 2

He says that crime has became an INFOTAINMENT!

INFOTAINMENT - Crime has become a mixture of fact and reality and real world crimes can inspire fictional media!

He says that people ‘can’t get enough’ of cold cases, mass murders, criminal masterminds etc = True crime documentaries; Eleanor Neale (true crime Youtuber)!

Question 3

What do Kidd-Hewitt and Osbourne say about Crime? HINT: Recognise it as a ‘Spectacle’!

Answer 3

They recognise crime as a spectacle!

Crime fills the gap that was left when watching ‘blood-sports’ were removed and watching public hangings was removed (Public hangings became illegal in the UK in 1964 and Capital Punishment was abolished in 1969)

Question 4

What do Fictional Criminals / Crime look like? HINT: There are 6 Bullet Points here!

Answer 4

• Nearly always get arrested or’get what they deserve’
• Easily identifiable as bad or deviant or ‘troubled’
• Often men
• Commit terror or large scale crimes
• Stupid / psychopaths / bumbling idiots

Question 5

What do Factual Criminals / Crimes look like? HINT: There are 5 Bullet Points here!

Answer 5

• Ethnic Minority (BAME)
• Young
• Men
• ‘Underclass’ / working-class
• Drink-driving / drug / assault offences

Fictional criminals are normally always male and ‘psychopaths’, when in reality, they are normally ethnic minority men!

Question 6

What do Fictional Law Enforcers look like? HINT: There are 5 Bullet Points here!

Answer 6

• Nearly always victorious over the criminals
• Intelligent / ‘superhuman’
• Mavericks
• Likeable
• Protectors / Moral Enforcers
• Often men

Question 7

What do Factual Law Enforcers look like? HINT: There are 5 Bullet Points here!

Answer 7

• Perhaps corrupt?
• Perhaps brutal?
• Institutionally Racist? - Met Police!
• Mainly White
• Missing White Women Syndrome - Missing white women often get all of the coverage online - EG: Nicola Bulley etc

The police are nearly always victorious in fictional shows, whilst in real life, a large proportion of crimes are almost never solved; also, in real life, the police are often seen as corrupt and brutal (links to Institutional Racism)!

Question 8

What do Fictional Victims look like? HINT: There are 6 Bullet Points here!

Answer 8

• Usually a ‘helpless’ female
• Blameless
• Rich (They get item stolen from them in a burglary etc)
• They get closure and justice (a happy ending)
• They are often white
• They are often old

Question 9

What do Factual / Real Victims look like? HINT: There are 6 Bullet Points here!

Answer 9

• Often ethnic minority / BAME individuals
• Young
• Often men
• Working class
• Often do not receive justice
• They have real harm done to them, which then impacts them for a long time (we often do not see this in media representations of crime; the aftermath of crime and the impact is often never showed)

Question 10

What is the Marxist Perspective of Crime in the Media?

Answer 10

ISA –> People in society see the police as effective and successful (as that is how they are presented), which reinforces security and the idea of security - This tells people that if they commit a crime or attempt to start a revolution, then they will be caught and brought to justice…but is this true?

Question 11

What is the Functionalist and the Pluralist Perspective of Crime in the Media?

Answer 11

They believe that the media just reflects what is happening in society - EG: Old people are the victims of crime in TV as they are the victims of crime in real life…but is this true?

Pluralism = Democratic Mirror; Market Model; PSBs; journalists have honesty, integrity and independence; the media (and its focus on crime) is consumer-led and consumer-dominanted!

Question 12

What is the Interpretivist Perspective on Crime in the Media?

Answer 12

They focus in on the social construction of the media…is this to feed and power a certain ideology?

Question 13

What is the Feminist Perspective of Crime in the Media?

Answer 13

They see the Media, and the way it represents Crime, as a cause of violence against women –> Feminists often focus on women and the impact that crimes have against women.

EG: Jess Phillips, an MP, reads out the names of women who have been victims of murders that are committed by men every year on International Women’s Day!

Question 14

What is the Postmodernist Perspective of Crime in the Media?

Answer 14

They believe that the media informs and shapes our view of crime and criminality!

However, there is a lack of regulation on apps, such as on TikTok –> Increase in cyber crime??

Question 15

What does Surette argue in regards to crime? HINT: ‘Law of Opposites’ in regards to the Media and its representation of Crime!

Answer 15

They say that there is a ‘backwards law’ or ‘law of opposites’, whereby the media construct a picture which is an opposite version of reality.

They over report crimes which are rare, such as knife crimes, murder etc; this can create moral panics and fear in society - EG: By portraying middle-class people as the victims of crime in the media, this creates a fear amongst this class, when it’s actually working-class people who are often the victims of crime!

Question 16

What did Greer and Reiner identify in their study of Crime in the Media? HINT: There are 5 Bullet Points here - Links to the Over-Representation and Over-Exaggeration of Crime in the Media!

Answer 16

• Sex and drug related crimes are over-represented (property crime is most common!)
• Crime is portrayed as being serious and violent (most crime is low level, non-dramatic, trivial and typically involves no loss or serious damage or injury)

-Police effectiveness is over exaggerated (police are not always successful; they are overstretched and sometimes corrupt)

-Over exaggerating risks to high status, white, older people, women and children (their real risks are much lower)

• Media shows crime in isolation (we therefore don’t understand patterns or trends - sensational spotlights on dramatic crimes)

Question 17

What does Reiner say and believe about Fictional Crime? HINT: Excitement!

Answer 17

They say that Crime EXCITES the imagination - media seeks our newsworthy crime stories which will excite and captivate us (links to Postman). They use news values to select what will boost audiences / readers.

Reiner says that our understanding of crime is filtered through these news values (links to Galtung and Ruge), which leads us to have a misunderstanding of the reality of crime, as we are only being exposed to what the media corporations choose for us to see.

EG: Violent crime, sexual crime and terrorist crime are all over-represented, as they are more interesting and attract more interest.

Question 18

What are some of the Key News Values that are used, in regards to Crime and the Media? HINT: There are 5 Examples here!

Answer 18

• Large Scale
• Has more layers and fits into the wider concern in society
• A crime that is unique and popular
• Celebrities are involved - EG: The phone-hacking scandal that led to the Leveson Inquiry in 2011
• Unsolved crimes

Question 19

What 2 Sociologists identified ‘News Values’?

Answer 19

Galtung and Ruge!

Question 20

(GALTUNG AND RUGE) List some of the ‘News Values’ they Identified! HINT: Name as many as you can; there are 13 Examples here!

Answer 20

• Unexpectedness
• Elite nations / people
• Negativity
• Unambiguity / Clarity
• Proximity - How close it is to the people reading it; such as, UK papers will cover crimes that happen in the UK!
• Simplification - Easy to understand / solved crimes (such as solved true crime documentaries; not financial crimes)
• Children - When they are offenders or victims of crime, such as Madeline McCann!
• Graphic crimes
• Sex = Sex crimes, and women as victims (particularly seen with celebrities, as seen with Russel Brand)
• Violence
• Risk
• Threshold - Covering a story on just one rape vs a serial rapist

Question 21

How does the Media and Crime link to Baudrillard’s idea of Hyper-reality (links to Postmodernism)?

Answer 21

Crime is SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED in the Media = They set the agenda of what is important (such as knife crime) and they use news values to select what we see along with distorting the picture of what is actually happening).

This distorts our fear of becoming a victim, alters our understanding of what patterns of crime exist, increases our concern over crime in society.

Baudrillard’s Concept of ‘hyperreality’ - Media doesn’t reflect reality, it creates a new one. (EG = Crime fell or was steady between 1995 and 2010 but nearly ¾ of the population wrongly felt it was rising) → What we see in the media is actually not what is happening!

Question 22

How does the New Media make Crime work / How is the New Media Criminogenic? HINT: Name as many Examples as you can; there are 8 Examples here!

Answer 22

• Responses to the Media
• Deviancy Amplification
• Symbolic Violence (Gilroy) - Protests
• Copy-Cat Crimes
• Moral Panics and Folk Devils
• Glamorising and Romanticising Crime and Criminality
• Absence of Controls by the Police - lack of regulation on social media and editorial controls
• Bandura = Social Learning –> Bobo Dolls –> Desensitisation to violence, as seen with the Jamie Bulger case!

GREER AND REINER - They identified:

• Opportunity = Media enables criminality via connections
• Absence of controls = Lack of government and police controls
• Means
• Motive (Social Learning) - Bobo Dolls

Question 23

What is the ‘Hypodermic Syringe Model’ and how does this link to Desensitisation of Crime via the Media?

Answer 23

The ‘drip, drip, drip approach’; This Model suggests that the media has a direct and powerful influence on its audience, like a syringe injecting information directly into the mind→ Media is a business and it is a competition; because we are becoming so desensitised to crime and the media, the media has to increase the intendedness and the aggressiveness of crime shows; they also have to expand their target audience (increase of news values) in order to make more money and have a lot of impact and reach!

Question 24

Explain what the Jamie Bulger Case is and how it links to the Desensitisation of Crime by the Media!

Answer 24

‘It is not for me to pass judgement on their upbringing, but I suspect exposure to violent video films may in part be an explanation.’ - Mr Justice Morland, Trial Judge

• Child’s Play 3 (1991) horror movie is notorious for its links to the 1993 murder of 3 year old Jamie Bulger, in Liverpool, England.

= The 10 year old killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, supposedly saw the film, and imitated a scene where a victim is splashed with blue paint. There was a lot of mention of the links between the film and the crime in the UK press at the time, and a moral panic ensued.

• The case against the film, though never really proven, led to new legislation, The Amendment to the Video Recordings Act, contained in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994)

This creates a MORAL PANIC, especially regarding risks and the safety of people’s children; people may wonder what happens regarding the lack of social control that can cause children to be killing other children!

Question 25

What are the 6 ways in which Media can be a Form of Crime?

Answer 25

• Nature of Capitalism
• Relative Deprivation
• Feminist Approaches
• Promoting Moral Panics
• Imitation and Desensitisation
• Cyber Crime

Question 26

(NATURE OF CAPITALISM) How does this link to the Media being a Form of Crime?

Answer 26

• It promotes false needs by advertising goods to people that they do not need - Links to Pester Power and Conspicuous Consumption!
• Adverts are targeted towards individuals on low incomes = They may need to borrow or steal, in order to get goods - This links to, and helps further reinforce, the ‘Cycle of Poverty’!
• Can lead to the development and creation of fake and counterfeit goods
• Often includes smaller financial crimes, such as low income families often evading paying for a TV license!

Question 27

(RELATIVE DEPRIVATION) How does this link to the Media being a Form of Crime?

Answer 27

• Suggests that the focus of the Media is on middle-class consumption and their ‘consumerism’
• Media access is largely universal = Working-class people have access to messages that promote the consumption of goods and that promote consumerism, such as fast fashion and online shopping on websites like Shein!
• However, because working-class individuals have an inability to afford and buy these goods and ‘consume’, they often have to use illegitimate means in order to reach and attain their goals = ‘Strain Theory’ (Merton and Left-Realism)!

Question 28

(FEMINIST APPROACHES) How does this link to the Media being a Form of Crime?

Answer 28

• Many Feminists believe that the over-sexualisation of women in the Media leads to women becoming targets for SA and Rape
• There also tends to be over-dramatised reporting of White Women in the Media - White Woman Syndrome!
• Female Representations in the Media = Submissive to male challenges and issues regarding consent
• Reporting of behaviour in the Media leads to questions about female behaviour = Victim blaming and shaming! EG: ‘What were you expecting being dressed like that?!’

Question 29

(PROMOTING MORAL PANICS) How does this link to the Media being a Form of Crime?

Answer 29

• The role of moral entrepreneurs in creating Moral Panics leads to deviancy amplification!
• Broadcast of counter-cultural activities increase membership of counter culture. EG: Rave culture and drug culture!
• Critics (McRobbie) - Says that counter-cultures often merge into society anyway = As seen with Jock Young and the Hippies / Marijuana users!

Question 30

(IMITATION AND DESENSITISATION) How does this link to the Media being a Form of Crime?

Answer 30

• Imitation of crime –> Glamorised by the media
• Transmission of criminal techniques online = ‘Schools of Crime’ and Copy Cat Crimes! EG: The Dark Web and chat rooms!
• Desensitisation to Effects of Violence through the media. EG: Jamie Bulger Case!
• However = This is based on small studies and they have inconclusive findings –> Some people play violent video games, but do not commit crimes (perhaps due to their Social Bonds?)

Question 31

(CYBER CRIME) How does this link to the Media being a Form of Crime?

Answer 31

• Growth of online criminal activity related to the expansion of the media
• Depersonalisation of cyber space leads to trolling, cyber-bullying and cyber-harassment
• Cyber-enabled crimes = Crypto-currency and Identity Fraud / Hacking etc
• Cyber-dependent crimes = Only exist due to the media –> EG: Online Child Pornography and Hacking + Money Laundering due to Online Banking

Question 32

What is Deviancy Amplification and how can it lead to Moral Panics?

Answer 32

This is the targeting of news, public concern and crime control agencies on particular aspects and cases of deviance!

These Acts of deviance are perceived as being dangerous and wrong, which then increases the real deviancy of these Acts!

Question 33

Give some Examples of Moral Panics! HINT: Name as many as you can; there are 6 Examples here!

Answer 33

• Mods and Rockers (60s)
• Mugging (70s)
• HIV/AIDs (80s)
• Rave Culture and Ecstasy (90s)
• Islamic Terrorism (2000s)
• Stop the Boats (2023)

Question 34

What was the Leah Betts Story (‘Ecstasy Girl’ / ‘Ecstasy Tragedy’)?

Answer 34

Leah Betts was a young girl who passed away after taking ecstasy that was was believed to be spiked –> This was seen as as a moral panic; family members spoke to the media, pictures of her on her deathbed were shared around; she was ‘white, young and pretty’, which made her more appealing to the media!

However, it was later revealed that the ecstasy she has taken was pure; she actually died by taking the drug and taking too much water.

It was also discovered that the drug was supplied to her by a friend for her birthday. It was also suggested that the coverage of this case study actually increased the amount of drugs taken!

Question 35

What 2 Sociologists Criticise Moral Panics and say they are Outdated?

Answer 35

McRobbie and Thornton!

Question 36

(MCROBBIE AND THORNTON) What are there 5 Criticisms of Moral Panics?

Answer 36

FREQUENCY - There are too many that they are no longer noteworthy (Is the New Media to blame for this?)

CONTEXT - In the past, Moral Panics would scapegoat a group and create ‘folk devils’; however, today there are many viewpoints and values in society (Postmodernism)!

REFLEXIVITY - Because the concept of a Moral Panic is well-known, some groups actually try to create one for their own benefit.

DIFFICULTY - Because there is less certainty about what is unambiguously ‘bad’ today, moral panics are harder to start.

REBOUND - People are wary about starting moral panics as there is the possibility of it rebounding on them, e.g. John Major’s ‘family values’ campaign.