Crime and the Media

Question 1

In what ways do the media represent crime?

Answer 1

Overrepresentation of violent and sexual crime

Overrepresent criminals and victims as older and more middle-class

exagerate police sucks

Exaggerate the risk of becoming a victim.

Crime is represented as a series of events

Question 2

the overrepresentation of violent and sexual crime

Answer 2

Ditto and Duffy (1983

046% of media reports were on these crimes which makes up only 2% of crimes recorded by the police

Question 3

Overrepresentation of criminals and victims as older and middle-class

Answer 3

most rime is committed by the working class, and around the age of 15-20

Felson - refersd to this as ‘age falacy’

Question 4

Exagerate police success

Answer 4

police are a maj0r source for crime stories, they want themselves to be reported in a good light

Question 5

Exaggerate the risk of becoming a victim

Answer 5

women and white people are reported as being at the greatest risk of crimes, whereas young black and ethnic minority males are at the greatestt risk

Question 6

Crime is reported as a series of separate events

Answer 6

underlying structures and causes of crime are never examined

Question 7

How has media coverage changed?

Answer 7

Schlesinger and Tumber

before 1990s the media focus was on murder and petty crime
but after the 1990s there was a greater media focus on drugs, abuse, terrorism and football hooliganism

this was asa result of rising crime rates

Question 8

what are the main values of the news

Answer 8

immediacy

dramatisation

simplification

risk

violence

Question 9

How does the media cause crime?

Answer 9

imitation - providing deviant role models

Arousal - viewing violent or sexual imagery

desensitisation

Hypodermic syringe model

transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques

glamorisation of criminality

Question 10

Imitation example

Answer 10

James bulgur case - imitated the violence of ‘Childs play’

Question 11

Desensitisation example

Answer 11

bobo dol experiment - repeated forms of violence exposed to young people may cause insensitivity towards other peoples pain

Question 12

what is meant by the hyperaemic syringe?

Answer 12

refers to media being compared to drugs in the way it is addictive

it can also cause arousal the learning of criminal skills, desensitisation etc

Question 13

evaluation of the impact of media on crime

Answer 13

audience differs too greatly in age, social class, gender, level of education, and consequently do not react to media in the same way

Violence is actually caused by the complexity of factors. e.g poor socialisation, peer group influences, mental illness

different people react to violence differently, for example, Buckingham’s research suggests that young people are more media literate and use the media in a responsible way.

Question 14

How does media coverage create fear and moral panic

Answer 14

some sociologists suggest that media reporting of crime may create an unrealistic fear of crime, especially among the elderly.

Gerbner found that heavy users of television have agreater fear of crime than light users of television

Shlesinger and Tumbdr found a correlation between consumption of media through tabloids and fear of crime

Question 15

how does the media create a sense of relative deprivation

Answer 15

Left realists suggest that media is responsible for stimulating desires for money or unaffordable consumer goods through advertisements which encourages feelings of relative deprivation

functionalists such as Reiner argue that mass media help to bring about anomie and confusion, which brings motivation to commit crime

reined and Young both argue that the mass media distort people expectations of monetary success too high

merton argue that the pressure to conform to unrealistic goals encourages deviant behaviour as a means of achieving them

Question 16

What is the argument of cultural criminology?

Answer 16

Argue that media turns crime itself into the commodity that people desire. the media encourages them to commit crime

Hayward an Young (2012) see late modern society as media saturated, blurring the difference between the image and the reality of crime

Company’s use images of crime to sell products, for example ‘gangster rap’

soem places refuse entry to people wearing certain products because of crime that is associated with them e.g. stone island

Question 17

How does the advancement of technology and the internet create crime?

Answer 17

Cyber crime

jewkes (2003) - The internet creates opportunities to commit ‘conventional crime’ and ‘new crime’ using software

Question 18

What are the different types of cyber crimes identified by Wall

Answer 18

Cyber trespass -hacking into other peoples properties

Cyber dissection and theft - identity theft and violation of intellectual rights

cyber-pornography

cyber violence- doing psychological harm or inciting harm including bullying and racial abuse

global cyber crime - policing cyber crime is difficult due to the sheer scale of internet,

Question 19

what is the evaluation of cyber crime

Answer 19

despite the new crimes and the new ways to commit them, the new ICT provides the police with greater surveillance

ICT permits routine surveillance through the use of CCtV