Crime And The Media Flashcards
How does the media give a distorted image of crime?
The media over represent violent and sexual crime
The media portray criminals and victims as older and more middle class ‘age fallacy’
Media coverage exaggerates police success
The media exaggerates the risk of victimisation, especially to women
Crime is reported as a series of separate events
The media overplay extraordinary crime
What is the law of opposites in crime tv?
The opposite of the official stats
Property crime is under represented and violence drugs and sex crimes and over represented
Fictional sex crimes are committed by psychopathic strangers, not acquaintances
How might the media cause crime?
Imitation, copycat behaviour
Arousal
Showing criminal techniques
Stimulating desires for goods through advertising
How can the media create a fear of crime?
By exaggerating the amount of violent and unusual crime, and certain people becoming its victims. This distorts the publics impression of crime
How does the media cause relative deprivation?
Lea and Young. Even the poorest groups have media access, the media present everyone with images of a materialistic ‘good life’ of leisure, fun and consumer goods
What is a moral panic?
Exaggerated over reaction by society to a perceived problem, driven by media, where the reaction enlarges the problem out of all proportion to its real seriousness. In a moral panic-
A group is labelled as a folk devil or threat to societal values
The media exaggerate the scale
Moral entrepreneurs and other respectable people condemn this group. Leading to a ‘crackdown’ which may cause a self fulfilling prophecy that amplifies the problem
Who studied the mods and rockers moral panics?
Stanley Cohen
How can the clowns be used as an example of a moral panic?
The media identified them as a folk devil and exaggerated the threat which lead to more people doing it and more panic
When does moral panics happen according to Cohen?
Times of social change, reflecting the anxieties many people feel when accepted values seem to be undermined. Boundary crisis
Functionalists think moral panics are a way of reacting to a sense of anomie
How is moral panics criticised?
It assumes that the societal reaction is an over reaction
They are now routine and have less impact
What 4 types of cyber crime does Wall identify?
Cyber trespass- eg NHS hacking
Cyber deception and theft- identity theft, phishing, piracy
Cyber pornography- including porn involving minors
Cyber violence- doing pyschological harm and inciting physical harm. Cyber stalking, hate crimes. Eg Russian site that convinced teenagers to commit suicide
Global cyber crime- policing cyber crime is difficult because of the sheer scale of the internet and global crime posing problems of jurisdiction
