Media

Question 1

how is the media a ‘consumer spectacle’ ?

Answer 1

media is full of stories of crime which have become infotainment- information about crime is packaged to entertain.

Question 2

What did Hayward and Young (2012) say about crime and the media?

Answer 2

advertisers have turned images of crime into tools for selling products in the consumer market. (e.g hoodies/gangster raps)

Question 3

What is agenda setting within the media?

Answer 3

the influence and power the media has to manage which issues are presented to the public.

many of the things people think about/discuss are based on what the media reports - media provides knowledge for most people in society.

media representations impact what people believe regardless of the accuracy of these reports.

Question 4

What are news values?

Answer 4

news values are the values/assumptions held by journalists which guide them into what is a ‘newsworthy’ story - what should be reported/left out.

media search for ‘good story’ by dramatising event to encourage consumptions of their product.

Question 5

What did Greer and Reiner (2012) say about the media and crime , linking to news values?

Answer 5

in the media, stories of violent or sexual crime are used to excite people and capture imaginations

Question 6

What did Reiner (2007) say?

(news values)

Answer 6

media coverage of crime/deviance is filtered through the values of a journalist about what makes a ‘newsworthy’ story

Question 7

What did Greer (2005) say about the media and crime?

(news values)

Answer 7

it’s news values that explain why all mainstream media tend to exaggerate crime - especially any form of deviance from celebrities.

Question 7

Who said there is a ‘backwards law’ ?

Answer 7

Surrette (2010)

Question 8

What is the ‘backwards law’ ?

Answer 8

the media are constructing images of crime that are a backwards version of reality

Question 9

How did Greer (2010) argue a backwards law is created?

Answer 9

overexaggerating certain offences (drugs/violence) and underrepresenting others (property crime)

portraying property crime as more serious than it is

overexaggerating police effectiveness

overexaggerating risk to women, children and elderly

Question 10

Who came up with the hyperreality of crime and what is it?

What are the effects of this hyperreality?

Answer 10

Baudrillard (2001) came up with the postmodernist idea of hyperreality
argues media does not reflect reality , rather actively creates it as most people’s knowledge of crime is through the media.

Flatley (2010)- although all crime in England and Wales has been falling 1995-2010, between 3/4 and 2/3 of population thought it was rising

Question 11

How is the media a moral entrepreneur? How do they do this?

Answer 11

moral entrepreneurs are groups/people who have the power to create or enforce rules which define deviance.

the media acts as this by establishing themselves as self appointed guardians of national morality by labels and stereotyping certain groups which are a threat to society and should be condemned.

media can create folk devils - people/groups posing an exaggerated or imagined threat to society

media can carry out role of moral entrepreneurs through creating a moral panic.

Question 12

what is a moral panic?

Answer 12

a wave of public concern about some imagined/exaggerated threat to society

Question 13

What did Cohen (2002) say about media and moral panics?

Answer 13

through their exaggerated reporting, the media can whip up a moral panic.

Question 14

What did Hall (1978) say about the media and moral panics?

Answer 14

moral panics tend to appear during times of uncertainty (economic/political crisis or rapid social change)

in these times , those deemed as deviant are used as scapegoats

Question 15

what is deviancy amplification in terms of the media?

Answer 15

deviancy amplification is the way the media can create/worsen the deviance they condemn by over exaggerative reporting

agencies (schools/police/churches) respond to media’s concerns by enforcing harsher measures against demonised people - heavier policing, more arrests, changes in laws to criminalise activities.

the excitement of the reporting can cause people to play up to cameras and create the problem they’re condemning

Question 16

Give an example of deviancy amplification.

Answer 16

Cohen (2002) - ‘‘Folk Devils and Moral panics’’

two opposing youth groups in 1960s - Mods and Rockers
Easter Weekend (1964) - minor acts of vandalism and scuffles
media exaggerative reporting implied Clacton had been terrorised - led to moral panic.

The opposing groups (who had not previously seen themselves as rival groups) were encouraged by the media, and also encouraged more young people tp join who identified with the fashion nd risk lifestyle.

Shows how media’s reporting of deviance actually can create the problems concerning the public.

Question 17

What did McRobbie and Thornton (1995) say about the concept of a moral panic in today’s society?

Answer 17

concept of moral panic is no longer useful for understanding crime - it is outdated in the new age of media.

media saturated society and competition between different types of media means moral panics less likely.

Question 18

What do postmodernists argue about the relevance of moral panics in today’s society?

Answer 18

huge diversity of media reports and interpretations , people are more skeptical of mainstream media

Question 19

What does Hunt (2003) argue about the relevance of moral panics in today’s society?

Answer 19

boundaries separating moral/immoral behaviours have become blurred.

Question 20

What does Beck (1992) argue about the relevance of moral panics in today’s society?

Answer 20

in contemporary ‘risk society’ with so many uncertainties, things that used to create a moral panic are part of everyday life.

concept of ‘crime consciousness’ is part of everyday life.

Question 21

What does Hall (2012) argue about the relevance of moral panics in today’s society?

Answer 21

media does not create moral panics, it presents the feelings of many.

public concern is generated only to be soothed my media’s exaggeration of police’s capabilities.

these are rational concerns about real crimes - it is not in people’s imagination due to media - there are real victims.

concept of moral panic is an ideological construction used my liberal sociologists to dismiss anxieties.

Question 22

briefly explain the case of James Bulger

Answer 22

in 1993

James (2) was abducted in a shopping centre by two boys (10)

he was then brutally murdered - making the killers the youngest convicted murderers in British history

Question 23

Outline the Soham murders

Answer 23

2002

caretaker (Ian Huntley) lured two young girls into his home and killed them

his girlfriend (Maxine Huntley) gave him a fake alibi

Question 24

Greer and Reiner (2012) point out there has been a long history of what Pearson (1983) called ‘respectable’ fears - what are these?

Answer 24

concerns of ‘respectable’ people about the media causing crime and deviance

Question 25

briefly outline ways in which the media cause crime

Answer 25

labelling, moral entrepreneurship and deviancy amplification

provide motives (create bulimic society)

knowledge and learning of criminal techniques (e.g the game GTA)

new types of crimes (cybercrime)

reduction of social control (undermine police/CJS …….. present crime as seductive)