Crime and Media

Question 1

Media over-represent violence and sexual crime:

Answer 1

Duffy -

46% media reports about violent and sexual crime. HOWEVER, only 3% of all crimes are recorded by the police

Question 2

Media portrays criminals and victims as older and more M/C

Answer 2

Felson -

‘Age fallacy’

Question 3

Cohen and Young

New manufactured

Answer 3

COHEN and YOUNG - 
News is manufactured, social construction - by news values. This shows if a story is newsworthy. 
Crime news selection:
 - Immediacy: 'breaking news'
 - Dramatisation
 - Higher status
 - Violence
= Abnormal behaviour

Question 4

Mandel

Fictional representations of crime

Answer 4

MANDEL -

From 1945 to 1984, over 10 billion crime thrillers sold

Question 5

Fear of crime…

Media as a cause of crime

Answer 5

TUMBER -

Found that people who read the tabloids and watched TV = had a greater fear of becoming a victim, attack, mugged.

Question 6

Criticism of fear of crime - GREER and REINER

Media as a cause of crime

Answer 6

GREER and REINER -
The ‘effects’ research on the media as a cause of crime or fear of crime ignore the meaning the viewers give to media violence.

Basically, media is polysemic, the audience can interpret media violence in different ways and how it ‘EFFECTS’ them.

Question 7

LR: LEA and YOUNG
- Relative deprivation

(Media, relative deprivation and crime)

Answer 7

LEA and YOUNG -
Mass media has increased the sense of relative deprivation = people feel marginalised = want that lifestyle = turn to crime.

Question 8

Cultural criminology

HAYWARD and JOCK

Answer 8

HAYWARD and JOCK -
See late modernity society as media saturated - we are immersed in the ‘mediascape’.
Blurr between image and crime = NO CLEAR DISTINCTION

Question 9

FENWICK and HAYWARD

Media as a commity

Answer 9

‘Crime is packaged and marketed to young people as a romantic, exciting, cool and fashionable cultural symbol.
E.g graffti, street riots.

Question 10

Moral Panics - defining

Answer 10

Fold devil = marginalised group = SFP

Folk devil targeted by moral entrepreneurs

Question 11

Mods and Rockers

Moral Panics

Answer 11

COHEN -
The mods: dress smartly, rode scooters
The rockers: Leather jackets, rode motobikes

Media EXAGGERATED and DISTORTED the violence and damage = making it sound worst than it is.
This created a SYMBOLISATION of the mods and rocks = clothes, bikes, hairstyles, music = neg label and deviance, marginalisation, = SFP! (created a SPIRAL AMPLIFICATION).
Police target them, less tolerance.

Question 12

Wider context: Mods and Rockers

Moral panics

Answer 12

COHEN -
Moral panics as a result of a BOUNDARY CRISIS, focus on people’s anxieties and social disorder.
—> Functionalist’s see it as good, set boundaries, creates a sense of anomie.
—> Neo-marxist: Hall - distraction from the real problem.

Question 13

Criticisms of Moral Panics

Answer 13

MCROBBIE and THORNTON -

Moral panics are now a routine and have less impact.

Question 14

Cyber-Crime

Answer 14

WALL -
Types of cybercrime:
1. Cyber-Tresspass - Hacking, spreading viruses.
2. Cyber-deception and theft - ID theft, ‘phishing’ (obtaining bank details) - E.G FACEBOOK!!
3. Global cyber-crime - hard to police as it is so wide spread.

Question 15

ICT - JEWKES

Answer 15

JEWKES -
ICT allows police to be better at policing through CCTV cameras, email, fingerprint scanners….helps resolve and crack down on crime.