Media Flashcards
How is crime a major theme in popular culture?
2
Crime & violence are central features in many media products.
Media news is full of stories about crime & deviance.
What is an example of a media product ‘promoting’ crime?
Crimewatch
What have Hayward & Young (2012) argued advertisers have used images of crime and deviance for?
Tools for selling products.
What do Hayward & Young (2012) argue crime exists for?
Feeding the media; making it deliberately exciting to encourage it so there is more to report on.
How do Hayward & Young (2012) argue there is a distorted image of crime in media?
(6)
Overrepresent violent & sexual crime Portrays victims as older & middle-class Exaggerates police success Exaggerates the risk of victimisation Crime is reported as a series of separate events Overplays extraordinary crime
Hayward & Young (2012) argue there is a distorted image of crime in media.
One of the ways this is evident is through the OVERREPRESENTATION OF VIOLENT & SEXUAL CRIME.
Give an example of this.
Surge in Netflix true-crime docs has been primarily focused on violent & sexual crimes like ‘Night Stalker’ about Richard Ramirez.
Hayward & Young (2012) argue there is a distorted image of crime in media.
One of the ways this is evident is through the EXAGGERATING THE RISK OF VICTIMISATION.
Give an example of this.
The number of true-crime docs emerged, particularly on popular platforms like Netflix, has exaggerated the extent of crimes, making people anxious.
News is a social construction.
What is it the outcome of?
A social process in which some stories are selected while others are rejected.
According to Cohen & Young (1973), how is crime not discovered, but manufactured?
News values.
What are 3 examples of news values?
Violence, risk and dramatisation
What are ‘news values’?
Criteria journalists & editors use to decide if a story is newsworthy enough.
According to Greer and Reiner (2012), what are the media always seeking?
How do they exploit this?
Newsworthy stories of crime & deviance
Over-reporting & sensationalising crimes, creating a false reality.
What does Jewkes (2011) suggest news values guide?
Choices writers make when deciding what stories are newsworthy to report & what they leave out.
What does Greer (2005) suggest news values explain?
Why mainstream media exaggerates the extent of violent crime.
The Backwards Law - what have surveys shown?
Majority of people base their knowledge of crime & CJS on media, not direct experience.
The Backwards Law - surveys have shown many people base their knowledge of crime/the CJS on media, not direct experience.
What does Surette (2011) suggest?
There is a ‘backwards law’.
The Backwards Law - Surette (2011) suggests there is a ‘backwards law’.
What is this?
The way media constructs images of crime & justice creates a backwards version of reality.
The Backwards Law - Greer and Reiner (2012) suggest ways the media can change and misrepresent reality.
What are examples of this?
(5)
Exaggerate certain crimes Portray property crime as more serious Exaggerate police effectiveness Exaggerate victimisation Analysing individual incidents of crime
The Backwards Law - what do Greer and Reiner (2012) suggest the media can do to reality?
Change and misrepresent it.
Marxists - why don’t we often hear about crimes of the rich, such as politicians exploiting the tax system?
Sections of society are hidden from public view as they have wealth to fund news stories in their interest.
Marxists - what kind of theory is the marxist viewpoint?
Structural
Left realists - how is crime constructed?
To be exciting, so it’s a social construction, disguising reality.
Left realists - what kind of theory is the left realist viewpoint?
Non-structural
Postmodernism - what is the name of the main Postmodernist theory by Baudrillard?
The hyperreality of crime
Postmodernism - what is the hyperreality of crime theory by Baudrillard?
(2)
Media socially constructs a distorted view of crime & exaggerates risk of victimisation.
Doesn’t reflect but creates reality; without media reportage, no one would commit it.
Postmodernism - media doesn’t _______ crime, but ______ it.
a) report
b) create
Postmodernism - how is Baudrillard’s argument evident?
In England & Wales, crime was falling between 1995-2010, but most people thought it was going up because it’s representation in the media.
How can the media cause crime and deviance?
7
Imitation - deviant role models
Arousal - viewing violent/sexual imagery
Desensitisation - repeated viewing of violence
Transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques
A target for crime eg TV theft
Stimulating desires for unaffordable goods through advertising
Glamourising offending
What is evidence of ideas/concepts being transmitted through viewing it over an extended period of time (as the media does with crime/deviance)?
Bobo Doll study - children were shown a person beating a doll that cannot fall other. They then beat the doll themselves aggressively.
Greer and Reiner (2012) stated the media can cause crime and deviance because _____ stories of ______/______ crime can _____ the popular _________ as it _____ possibilities for a ‘________’ of crime and deviance by _________ them to _______ audience _______.
a) real
b) sexual/violent
c) excites
d) imagination
e) exploits
f) ‘good story’
g) dramatising
h) generate
i) interest
Lea and Young (Left Realists) said the media can cause crime and deviance because media ________ of crime _______ the ______ that both ________ and ______ are mainly _________.
a) reporting
b) disguises
c) reality
d) offenders and victims
e) working-class
Hayward and Young (2012) said the media can cause crime and deviance because ________ make ______ of crime and deviance into _____ for _______ products, ______ in _________ combining ______ of ________ and __________ to ________ criminal ________.
a) advertisers
b) images
c) tools
d) selling
e) evident
f) video games
g) images
h) criminality
i) designer chic
j) glamourise
k) lifestyles
The labelling and deviancy explanation states the media can cause crime and deviance because the _______ of media ______ can _______ people to ______ and _______ when they may not have _______ done so; the media can _____ or _______ the _______ they _______ (___________) - links to _______.
a) presence
b) cameras
c) encourage
d) act up
e) misbehave
f) originally
g) create
h) worsen
i) problems
j) condemn
k) deviancy amplification
l) moral panic
Define deviancy amplification.
The media can create or worsen the problems they condemn.
Define moral panics.
An exaggerated overreaction by society to a perceived problem - usually driven by the media - where the reaction pushes the problem out of proportion.
What is an example of moral panics?
Mods & rockers in the 1960s; known for fighting each other and posing threats to the public, being demonised by the media.
What did Cohen - Folk Devils and Moral Panics outline about the media and its impact on moral panics?
Helps define subcultures & the more it’s reported, the more people become aggravated about it.
What is ‘Folk Devil’ (Cohen)?
People demonised in the media.
McRobbie and Thornton (1995) - ______ ______ aren’t ________ today to understanding _____.
New media __________, ____ news and __________ between media ___________ etc have changed the _________ of, and _______ to, events that may have once caused moral panic due to _____ amounts of different __________.
a) moral panics
b) relevant
c) crime
d) technology
e) 24/7
f) competition
g) organisations
h) reporting
i) reaction
j) mass
k) narratives
What is the pluralist & postmodernist view on moral panic?
diversity, difficult, newsworthy
There’s now huge diversity of media reports, interpretations of events, opinions and reactions where people are more likely to be sceptical.
It’s therefore more difficult for the media to define events in a way that creates moral panic.
News is updated and reported on minute-by-minute so most criminal events now have such a short shelf-life that they’re not newsworthy for long enough to become moral panic.
What is Steve Hall’s (2012) critical view on moral panic?
3
Media sensationalises specific crimes but overstates the CJS capacity to solve them so any public concern is relaxed.
There are rational concerns about real crimes, particularly in disadvantaged communities, that produces real and distressing harm to all sorts of victims - those who dismiss this as moral panic deny people’s anxieties.
Moral panics = zombie concept.
