Crime and the Media Flashcards
Moral Panic
Widespread public anxiety about a particular kind of crime or deviance
Deviancy amplification
A social process in which actions intended to reduce deviance have the opposite effect
Media representation of crime - (Over represent sexual and violent crime)
Ditton and Duffy (1983) found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes yet theses only made up 3% of all crimes recorded by the police.
Marsh (1991) - found that a violent crime was 36 times more likely to be reported than a property crime
Media representation of crime - (Portray criminals and victims as older and more middle class)
Portray criminals and victims as older and more middle class than those found typically found in the criminal justice system.
Felson calls this age fallacy
Media representation of crime (Media coverage exaggerates police success)
This is partly because the police aren’t a major source of crime stories and want to present themselves in a good light
Media representation of crime (The media exaggerate the risks of victim)
The media exaggerate the risks of victimisation especially to women, white people and higher status people
Media representation of crime (Crime is reported as a series of separate events)
Crime is reported as a series of separate events without the structure and without examining underlying causes
Media representation of crime( the me
Schlesinger and Tumber
Soothill and Walby
Cohen and Young
Surette
The media as a cause of crime
Evaluation
Fear of crime
