Media and crime

Question 1

Who introduced the news values?

Answer 1

Gatlung and Ruge

Question 2

List the news values.

Answer 2

immediacy, dramatization, simplification, violence, unexpectedness.

Question 3

Give an example of a crime that involves a news value.

Answer 3

Violence- celebrity sentenced to 150 days in jail for staging hate crime on himself.
Told police beaten, chemical substance poured on him etc.
Denies it.

Question 4

Give 2 studies that show that the media over-represents crime?

Answer 4

Ericson et al- Toronto’s press- 45-71% of press and radio news was about deviance.

Williams and Dickinson- British newspapers devote 30% of news space to crime.

Question 5

What does Surette call fictional representations of crime?

Answer 5

‘law of opposites’- opposite to official stats, similar to news coverage.

Question 6

What do you typically see in fictional representations of crime?

Answer 6

• Fictional cops usually catch person, reality doesn’t.

* Fictional villains usually higher status, middle aged, white men.

Question 7

According to Schlesinger and Tumbler, what crimes were mainly committed in the 60s and now?

Answer 7

60s- murder/ petty crime.

Now-sex crime.

Question 8

What does Williams and Dickinson give evidence of in terms of distortion/ exaggeration of crime?

Answer 8

65% crime stories in 10 national newspapers about violence- same year, British Crime Survey reported only 6% violent crimes.

Question 9

Define deviancy amplification. Give examples.

Answer 9

interactionists refer to ways levels of deviance/ crime increased by societal reaction to deviance itself.

Moral panics- petrol, anti-vax, 9/11, flat earth.