CRIME AND DEVIANCE TOPIC 7: CRIME AND THE MEDIA

Question 1

What is the overview of the way media represent crime?

Answer 1

-over-represent violent and sexual crime (Ditton and Duffy)
e.g. 46% of media reports about violence & sex crimes
-portray criminals and victims as older and more middle class
- exaggerates police success
-exaggerates risk of victimisation e.g. only women & children

Question 2

according to SCHLESINGER & TUMBLER, how did the portrayal of crime change between the 1960s & 1990s?

Answer 2

• most media focused on petty crime (property crime;theft)
  -these crimes were so common that the media needed more interesting stories
  =focus shifted to more extreme crimes e.g. violence

Question 3

according to SOOTHILL & WALBY, how do the media give a distorted view of sex crimes?

Answer 3

-reports of rape cases inc. from less than 1/4 to over a 1/3
-stories focus more on random attacks by strangers; majority of them are actually carried out by ppl the victim knows

Question 4

• what is meant by the news being a social construction?

Answer 4

-its the outcome of a social process in which some potential stories are accepted and others rejected; news is not discovered but manufactured= pick & choose what they want to show

Question 5

how are news values used to manufacture the news?

Answer 5

-news values are the criteria that editors/journalists use to decide which stories to show

Question 6

what are examples of key news values?

Answer 6

• Immediacy- breaking news
• Dramatisation -excitement
• Personalisation - human interest stories
• Higher status -celebrities
• Simplification - eliminating shades of grey
• Novelty or unexpectedness - a new angle
• Risk - victim-centred stories about vulnerability and fear
• Violence - especially visible and spectacular acts

Question 7

What is the fictional representation of crime?

Answer 7

Surette (1998) calls the ‘law of opposites’ - fictional depictions that are opposite to what the official statistics suggest

Question 8

What crimes are fictionally represented by the media?

Answer 8

-property crime is underrepresented, while violence, drugs and sex crimes are over represented.
-fictional sex crimes are usually perpetrated by psychopathic strangers, not acquaintances.
-homicides in fiction are based on planning/calculation; irl it’s in the heat of the moment
-police in film/tv seen as overly competent and successful

Question 9

What are 3 important trend of fictional representation of crime?

Answer 9

-new reality shows criminals as non-white underclass
-inc. in shows depicting police as corrupt/incompetent
-victims have also become a more central focus

Question 10

How can the media be a cause of crime?

Answer 10

-the media has been said to cause negative effects on its audience for decades.
-e.g. through violent video games like GTA
=affects attitudes, values and behaviours, especially to groups who are susceptible like the young, lower class and uneducated

Question 11

What are the ways that the media might cause crime?

Answer 11

-Imitation (copycats) where people copy crimes they have seen in the media
- Arousel - e.g. through viewing violent sexual behaviour
- Desensitisation - repeated viewing of violence desensitises you to it.
- Transmission- of knowledge of criminal technique and it stimulates desires for unaffordable goods through advertising.
- glamourising offending

Question 12

What studies show that exposure to media violence have a small and a limited negative effect of audiences?

Answer 12

-Schramm et al (1961)
=media violence has very little effect on most children

Question 13

according to LIVINGSTONE, why are people still preoccupied with the effects of the media on children?

Answer 13

-childhood should be protected as it’s supposed to be an innocent time for them

Question 14

How does the media cause a fear of crime?

Answer 14

• The media also exaggerates the risks of certain groups being victims of crime
• There is the concern that the media is distorting the public’s impression of crime and causing an unrealistic fear of crime.

Question 15

What does research show about a link between media use and fear of crime?

Answer 15

-(GERBNER ET AL) heavy users (4hrs+) of tv had higher levels of fear of crime.

• (SCHLESINGER & TUMBLER) TV users and tabloid readers had greater fear of becoming victim to a physical attack and mugging

Question 16

What are the criticisms of the research showing media as a cause of crime?

Answer 16

Greer and Reiner (2012) -
- Much research in this field ignores the meanings that viewers give to media violence
- E.g. they may give very different meanings to violence in cartoons, horror and the new

• This criticism reflects the interactionist view that in order to understand the possible effects of the media, we must look at the meanings people give to what they see and read

Question 17

How does media lead to the feeling of relative deprivation and crime?

Answer 17

Left realists (Lea and Young)
- Mass media helps to increase the sense of relative deprivation among poor and marginalised

Question 18

how does merton’s theory apply with the use of media and the cause of relative deprivation?

Answer 18

Merton’s strain theory:
- Pressure to conform to the norm can cause deviant behaviour - the media are instrumental in setting and promoting the norm

• Relative deprivation explains how the media produces/causes crime - by showing people lifestyles they desire but can’t afford so they try to obtain them illegitimately

Question 19

How does the combination of cultural criminology and the media cause crime?

Answer 19

-The media encourages its audiences to consume crime
This is done through showing images of crime

• (HAYWOOD&YOUNG) there is a blurring between the image and the reality of crime. The two are no longer distinctly separable.
  -e.g. gang violence on camera but also staged for promotion

Question 20

How has crime been commodified?

Answer 20

-crime is being used to sell products as being cool’ and exciting through advertisers using media images of crime

Question 21

What is an example of crime being commodified?

Answer 21

-Graffiti is the marker of ‘deviant urban cool’ but advertisers now use it in ‘guerrilla marketing’ called ‘brandalism’ to sell anything from cars, theme parks and video games.

Question 22

how are brands used as tools of classification?

Answer 22

• brands consumed by young people on a basis of being linked to criminality can be used to classify potential criminals

Question 23

How does The Media cause Moral panic?

Answer 23

1) identify a group as folk devils or a threat to societal values
2) show the group in a negative, stereotypical way and exaggeration of the problem
3) moral entrepreneurs/police chiefs and other ‘respectable’ people of power condemn the group and its behaviour

Question 24

what are the 3 main stages of the moral panic called?

Answer 24

-exaggeration & distortion=media reports on an event in a dramatic way
-prediction= media warn more violence would continue
-symbolisation= media show reports that match characteristics of the troublesome group

Question 25

What are criticisms of moral panics and the media?

Answer 25

-doesn’t explain why the media are able to amplify some problems into a panic;not others
-late modernists McRobbie and Thornton argue that we are no accustomed to ‘shock’ and ‘horror’ stories in the media so they have less of an impact on us nowadays.

Question 26

What is Cyber Crime?
(Thomas and Loader)

Answer 26

-computer-mediated activities that are either illegal or considered illicit by some, and that are conducted through global networks

Question 27

What are the 4 categories of cyber crime? (Wall 2001)

Answer 27

• Cyber-trespass - crossing borders into other’s cyber property. Includes hacking sabotage through viruses.
• Cyber pornography - porn involving children, also accessed by children.
• Cyber deception and theft - identity theft, phishing, violation of intellectual property.
• Cyber violence - doing/ inciting psychological or physical harm. Cyber stalking and hate crime/ bullying.

Question 28

How has improved IT and surveillance impacted Cyber Crime?

Answer 28

• ICT has increased the police and the states ability to watch and control the population.
• Jewkes (2003)- CCTV, electronic data bases, digital fingerprinting and ID cards, listening devices, all enable the government to keep a watch on us