Crime And The Media Flashcards
How does the media represent crime?
- over representation of violent and sexual crime
- over represent criminals and victims as older and more m/c
- exaggerate police success
- exaggerate the risk of becoming a victim
- crime is reported as a series of separate events
- extraordinary crimes are overplayed
Over representation of violent sexual crimes
Diction and Duffy (1983):
- 46% of media reports were on these crimes - which make up only 3% of crime recorded by the police
Overrepresent criminals and victims as older and more middle class
- most crime is actually committed by w/c people ages 15-20 (ONS)
- Felson (1998) calls this the ‘age fallacy’
Exaggerate police success
- police are a major source for crime stories. They want themselves to be presented in good light
Exaggerate the risk of becoming a victim
- women, white people and higher status people are shown to be most at risk, when actually young BME males are often most at risk of many crimes
Crime reported as a series of separate events
- underlying structures and causes of crime are never explained or examined
Extraordinary crimes are overplayed
- the media makes crime seem daring and clever
- felson (1998) calls this the ‘dramatic fallacy’
News and crime
- Williams and Dickinson (1993) found that British newspaper devote up to 30% of their news space to crime
- the media over represent violent and sexual crime- ditton and Duffy (1983) found that 46% of media reports were about extremely violent crimes such as murder or sexual crimes yet these crimes only make up 3% of crimes recorded by the police.
- soothill and Walby (1991) found that newspaper reporting of rape cases increased from under a quarter of all crime reporting in 1951 to over a third in 1985
- the media portrays criminals and victims as older and more middle class - felson calls the ‘age fallacy’
- crime is reported as a series of separate events without structure and without explaining underlying causes
- the media overplay extraordinary crimes. Felson calls this the ‘dramatic fallacy’. Similarly, media images lead us to believe that to commit crime one needs to be daring and clever
- the risk of victimisation, especially to women and higher status individuals - victim surveys clearly show that young makes, ethnic minorities and poorer people are the main victims of crime
News coverage
- there is some evidence in the changes in the type of coverage by the news media
- Schlesinger and timber (1960s), the focus was mainly on crimes such as murder and petty crime. 1990s the rising crime rates meant that a crime had to be ‘special’ to attract coverage.
- reporting has also widened to include drugs, child abuse, terrorism, football hooliganism and sex crimes
- soothill and Walby found that newspaper reporting of rape cases incerease from under a quarter of all cases in 1951 to over a third in 1985. They also not that coverage consistently focuses on identifying a sex fiend of beast. This results in a disorted pictured of rape - commonly the perpetrator is known by the victim
News values
- immediacy
- dramatisation
- personalisation
- higher status
- simplification
- novelty and unexpectedness
- risk
- Violence
Media as a cause of crime
There has been a concern for some time that the media can have a negative effect on attitudes, values and Behaviour especially of those groups thought to be the most susceptible to infuse be such the young, lower classes and the uneducated. There are numerous ways in which the media might possibly cause crime and deviance:
1. Imitation - by providing deviant role models, resulting in copy cat behaviour e.g, the James bulger case
2. Arousal, e.g through viewing violent or sexual imagery
3. Desensitisation
4. Transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques
5. As a target for crime - stealing tvs
6. Stimulating desires for unaffordable goods through advertising
7. By portraying the police as incompetent
8. Glamorising offending
Desensitisation - Bandura
Bobo doll experiment
- does seeing violence on TV, in the news and in video games desensitise us to crime?
- ethical issues
- disappearance of childhood
- palmer - toxic childhood
Regretted viewings of violence and murder may result in young people becoming insensitive to other peoples pain, grief and suffering, and therefore likely to commit criminals acts because they do not realise the personal consequences of causing pain or harm
Hypodermic syringe model
- this approach is often called the ‘hypodermic syringe’ approach because media content is often compacted to a drug in the way it affects an individual
- some psychologists have also suggest that in addition to imitation, mass media content, especially violent content, may result in other types of negative behaviour such as: arousal learning of criminal skills, desensitisation, glamorisation
Arousal
Through the viewing of violent sexual images. This is seen as having the potential to cause sexual offences
Learning of criminal skills
Some types of media have been criticised for supposedly transmitting knowledge about criminal techniques
Glamorisation of criminality
It is suggested that media reporting of crime as well as real life and fictional accounts of it in films, televisions and literature may glamorise crime and criminals, and consequently attract people into criminal careers
Evaluation of crime in the media
- audiences differ too much in terms of age, social class, intelligence, level of education etc and consequently do not react in the same way to media content
- violence is actually caused by a complex range and combination of possible factors, e,g poor socialisation, bad parenting, peer group influences, mental illness, drugs, alcohol etc.
- the meaning that viewers give to media violence differ. Different audiences interpret violence in cartoons, horror films and news quite differently to one a bitter.
Other effects of media coverage - fear
- the evidence suggest that media reporting of crime is both distorted and exaggerated. Some sociologists have expressed concern that media reporting of crime may be causing an unrealistic fear of crime especially among the elderly. Research evidence to some extent supports this view
- Greer and Reiner 2012 notes much ‘effects’ research on the media as a cause of crime of fear of crime ignores the meanings that viewers give to media violence. This criticism reflects the interprevists view that we must look at the meanings people give to what they see and read.
The media, relative deprivation and crime
- laboratory research has focused on whether media portrayals of crime leads viewers to commit come themselves. An alternative approach is to consider how far media portrayals of normal lifestyles might encourage people to commit crime
- left realist suggest that the media is responsible for crime by stimulating desire for money or unaffordable consumer goods through advertising which encourages the feeling of relative deprivation
- functionalists - Reiner and others argue the mass media help to bring out anomie or moral confusion, and consequently the motivation to commit crime. Merton argues this pressure to conform can encourage people to achieve these goals
- Reiner and young argue that the mass media raises peoples expectations too high with regard to monetary success and access to consumer goods. They argue that the media present all social groups with images of a materialistic good life of leisure, fun and consumer good.
Cultural criminology and crime
- cultural criminology argues that the media turn crime itself into the commodity that people desire. Rather than simply producing crime in their audiences, the media encourage them to consume
- Hayward and young 2012 see late modern sockeye as media saturated, where we are immersed in the media scale. There is a blurring between the image and reality of crime
-n a further feature of late modernity is the emphasis on consumption, excitement and immediacy, advertisers use images of crime to sell products, especially in the youth market. - graffiti is the marker of deviant urban cool and compaines now use it as part of their branding. The designer labels valued by young people re badges of identity and are now symbols of deviance.
What is a moral panic?
A moral panic is an exaggerated over reaction by society to perceived problem, which is usually driven and/or inspired by the media. The reaction to this enlarged the problem out of all proportion to its real seriousness
Stages in a moral panic
- The media identity a group as a folk devil or a threat to societal values
- The media present the group in a negative, stereotypical fashion and exaggerate the scale of the problem
- Moral entrepreneurs, editors, politicians, police chiefs and other ‘respectable’ people condemn the group and its behaviour
How does the media report a moral panic
Exaggeration and distortion - the media exaggerate the numbers involved and the extent of the violence and damage. This is usually done through dramatic headlines
Prediction - the media regularly assumes and predicts further violence and conflict would occur
Symbolisation - the media create symbols for the ‘folk devils’ which are all negatively labelled e.g, by associating them with certain clothing, hair styles, music etc
Deviancy application spiral
- this causes increased marginalisation and stigmatisation of the ‘folk devils’
- the media definitions of situations are crucial in creating a moral panic. This is because people rely on the media for information about ‘folk devils’ because they rarely have experienced them themselves
- cohen argued that the media’s portrayal of events produced a deviancy amplification spiral - this made the problem seem like it was spreading and getting out of hand
