Crime and Media

Question 1

Media portrayal of crime (Felson)

Answer 1

Media portrays criminals/victims as older and more middle-class than those typically found in criminal justice system - age fallacy

Media exaggerates police success because police for me just sort of crime stories want to present in the good light.

Media exaggerates risk of victimisation – especially women/white people/higher status individuals

Media overplay extreme crimes and underplay ordinary crime – Felson cause this dramatic fallacy

Media images lead us to believe that to commit crime need to be daring and clever – ingenuity fallacy

Question 2

News value and crime coverage

Answer 2

Stories of crime are selected while others are rejected.

News is not discovered but manufactured.

News value are the criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to put in newspaper or news bulletin.

Key news values of crime stories include immediacy, dramatisation, higher status individuals, violence and risk, children, sex.

Question 3

Mods and rockers - Cohen

Answer 3

The media developed these groups into ‘folk devils’ and constructed a ‘moral panic’ about young people generally.

Media inventory coverage creating moral panic

1) Symbolisation = symbol of mods and rockers negatively labelled and associated with deviance
2) Exaggeration/distortion = Exaggerated people involved and extent of violence/damage and distorted picture thorough dramatic reporting
3) Prediction = media assume and predicted further conflict and violence would result = moral panic

Medias portrayal produce deviance amplification spiral. Produce further marginalisation and stigmatisation of mods and rockers as deviant

Question 4

Functionalist view of moral panic

Answer 4

Way of responding to sense of anime a normal listless created by change. By dramatising practice society from folk devil media pulses become active consciousness and reassert social control when central values are threatened

Question 5

Mcrobbie and Thornton

Answer 5

Moral panics are now a routine and have less impact people are now desensitised

Question 6

Copy cat behaviour

Answer 6

Media emphasis on crime can lead to you copying the same act. Media exaggeration of crime and publicly showing crime increases crime.

Use copycat behaviour when playing violent games e.g. GTA or video games = increase crime

Bobo doll study - bandura

Question 7

Hypodermic Syringe model

Answer 7

Media chooses content to publish and people passively Accept it to be true

Question 8

Media Glamorising crime

Answer 8

Oceans 8 movie
Straight outta Compton
Encourages crime as it creates good lifestyle