crime and the media Flashcards
what did Ericson find about the medias documentation of deviance
study of Toronto found that 45-71% of quality press and radio news was about various forms of deviance
what % of british newspapers devote to crime
30%
how media presents distorted image of crime
- the media over-represent violent and sexual crime
(Ditton and Duffy found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes yet only made up 3% of all crime reported by the police) - media portrays criminals and victims as older and more MC
- media coverage exaggerated police success in clearing up cases
- media exaggerates the risk of victimisation
felstons fallacies
media portray criminals and victims are older and more MC than those found in the CJS “the age fallacy’
crime underplayed ordinary crimes ‘the dramatic fallacy’
media images lead us to believe that to commit the crime (and solve it are needs to be daring and clever ‘the ingenuity fallacy”
how have the ways things are reported changed?
Schlesinger and tumbler
In the 1960s the focus was on murders and petty crimes, by the 1990s these were less important and focused more on drugs, child abuse, terrorism mugging. part of this change is because the death penalty was removed for murder and rising crime meant a crime had to be ‘special’ to attract coverage
soothill and walby- on the over-reporting of sexual crimes
coverage focuses on identifying a ‘sex fiend’ or ‘beast’. the result is a distorted picture of rate, one of serial attacks committed by psychopathic strangers.
while these crimes do occur they arethe exception rather than the rule- in ost cases the perpetrator is known to the victim
what are the news values
new values are the criteria by which the media decides whether a story is worthy of being reported or not
- immediacy
- dramatisation
- personalisation
- higher status
- simplification
- novelty/ unexprectedess
- risk
- violence
what did mandel find about fictional representation of crime
over 10 billion crime thrillers were sold worldwide. 25% of prime time TV and 20% of films are on crime
surette on fictional representation
crime trends in fictional represenation tend to be the opposite of crime statistics:
- property crime is under-represetned, while violence, drugs and sex crimes are over represented
pike on fictional crime
polive dramas on tele -
- exaggerate focus on confessions and extraordinary intelligent people solinving victims
crime being complex
emphasis on false methods (holograph)
example of video narties leading to crime
killing of james buldger after watching too many horror movies
nicolas cruz
in 2018 killed 17 students leading to Kentucky goverenet calling all producers of violent movies to think about what tey are doing rather than blaming the NRA
what is the hypodermic needle model
media transmits messange
peopel passivley accept message
therefore violent messages will make people more violent
example of the hypodermic needle
colombine school shooting 1999 killed 13 studetns adn was said to be linked to maralyn mansion and violent songs that the perpetrator listened to
why is the hypotermic needle theory problematic?
balming video games or the media is an easy way to simplify the causes of violence, when there are much deeper issues such s lack of socialisation, mental health issues or being excluded in society which makes murderers play violent video games for sinister reasons rather than normal people playing vdeio games and then killing people just due to that influence alone
how can the media make us more likely to commit crimes
people who are already inclued to commit violent crimes are influenced by the media as it desentivises them to violence and even teaches crime techniques (cultivation theory)
relative deprivation and the media
advertising, concumerism and social media lead to relative deprivation which according to jock young makes people commit crimes out fo individualism and frustration towards society
gerbner’s cultivation theory
heavy TV users had higher levels of fear of. crime leading to mean world syndrome
mean world syndome
schleinger found that there was a correlation between tabloid news and heavy TV and the fear of being a victim
leads to thinking that the world is more unsafe than it is
postmodernist hyper reality view
(use when supporting gerber)
the media socially consitcts a distorted view of crime and the CJS the rick of beconigna. victim of crime and uneccecarily increases the publics fear of crime
creating a hyper ralitifty suggesting that the media doesn’t reflect reality hut instead creates something that seem areas
between 1995-2020 crime rates gradually fell but polls showed that 3/4 of the population wrongly thought it was rising
evaluation of the fear of crime
the study is problematic as it onyl shows that people who fear crime stay in and watch TV rather than the TV causing the crime and making people stay in
moral panics and media
cohen aruges that moral entreprenurs sucha s politicans and tv create moral crusades which attack groups of people in society and make them outsiders this leads to deviance amplification and more crimes influenced by the media coverage of the ‘panic’
however durkehim argues that moral panics are good as they created boundary matinetnace by identifying deviant subculture
how has the internet influenced more crime to take place
jewkes:
growing fears of cyber crimes as it allowed more opportunity of annonimity of crimes
for example cyber trespassing and hacking is a new annoynymous way to commit crimes that arent as conetinally easy to track down
example of moral panic about the media
trump (moral entrepreneur) created a moral crusade against video games arguing that was the cause of school shootings
this cerated a moral panic about letting children used video games and eventually lead to the WHO declare gaming addiction a mental health issue
this diverts from the real issues of guns in america and scapegoats a form of media whihc is relativley hamrless if peopel who arent pre-disposed to violence use it
how can the media help contibute to deviance amplification
the media in cenrtal in creating moralpanics have helped raise the profile of the issue which in turn can be seen by deviance amplification
in fwaberts study of. the hoodies in bluewater moral panic, the week prior hoodies made no headlines the week later itwas on every headline
no surise. that hoody saels in bluewater increased massivley
criticsm of new media causing more crimes
crimes on the. internet are far easier to track due to having a digital. footprint
