media and crime

Question 1

4 news values

Answer 1

1. Immediacy = Details are readily available and can be published immediately
2. Extreme violence = gory details attract audiences
3. Simplification = easy to understand and will generate more interest
4. Dramatisation = exciting details captivate people more

Question 2

3 examples of media technology and crime

Answer 2

1. Cyber theft - criminals using online media to steal money from victims
2. cyber pornography - involved people accessing illegal sexual content
3. Cyber violence - offenders using the media to harm people socially eg harassment

Question 3

Distortion of crime and deviance in fictional media

Answer 3

• Law of opposites : media generated images of crime are in opposition with the reality of crime
• Hyper reality : People’s perception of the reality of crime is inaccurate

1. Most crime is property based and this gets limited attention
2. Fictional media portrays violence as being randomised
3. In dramas, the police have a high success rate

Question 4

Moral panic - Cohen

Answer 4

(Media has caused people to have an exaggerated fear of an issue due to the way the media presents it)

• Mods and Rockers case study
• 4 stages of a moral panic theory
  1. initial reports on the identification of a problem
  2. News outlets use sensationalist language and dramatic pictures to capture attention
  3. Media continues to report on the problem group
  4. the moral panic is consolidated and the general public openly express fear
• Deviance amplification = people are attracted to the problem group and seek it out for excitement

Question 5

Postmodern - moral panic theory

Answer 5

• Beck
• Society has a heightened consciousness of risk (disintegration of old cultural activities eg religion)
• New types of risk have appeared eg nuclear war and global warming
• The media deliberately reports upon deviant activities in a way which instills fear across people

Question 6

Evaluation of Moral panic theories

Answer 6

1. Theory gives offenders a victim status when their actions are genuine problems
2. Ignores the extent to which people can think critically about the nature of risk within society
3. Exaggerates the extent to which people are unable to cope with change
4. Difficult to find evidence of a collusion between the ruling class, police and media
5. Undermines the damage that cab be done by the media when it comes to stereotyping

Question 7

Interactionalism - moral panic theory (social change)

Answer 7

• Moral panic arises in period of social change eg 1960s coincided with youth becoming a distinctive consumer group for the first time
• Moral panic arises when society is undergoing a moral crisis
• Moral panics are a product of social change

Question 8

Marxism - Moral panics

Answer 8

• Moral panics are used as an ideological tool of the capitalist class
• Hall : 1970’s British capitalism experienced a crisis of hegemony (domination of ruling class was challenged)
• Right wing media collaborated with the state and police to create a moral panic about mugging by black youths
• This divided white WC and Black WC + was a divide and rule strategy

Question 9

Realism - moral panics

Answer 9

• Moral panics are based on reality and fact eg often a real threat to those in inner city areas
• Interactionalists and marxists wrongly portray moral panics as fantasies made up by journalists
• Crime has great harm in sone communities and the sense of threat people feel
• moral panics are justified in many cases

Question 10

Media and causes of crime (4)

Answer 10

1. Media and relative deprivation
2. media teaching of criminal skills
3. Media labelling and deviance amplification
4. Media promotion of crime

Question 11

Media and relative deprivation

Answer 11

• (sense of envy of those who have more)
• left realists argue this is exaggerated by the media
• Growth in celebrity culture and social media
• Drives people to innovate

Question 12

Evaluation of media as a cause of crime

Answer 12

1. Attributing materialistic offences to the media is too simplistic
2. The view that the media persuades people to act in a timing way has been dismissed due to lack of evidence
3. People know what behaviours are unacceptable before the media labels them as such
4. The idea the media promotes crime is a very simplistic idea

Question 13

The media promotes and encourages crime

Answer 13

• The media unintentionally persuades people to go out and take their chances with crime
• Leads to a weakening of the formal and informal social controls
  1. growth of social media has enabled people to express their opinions more easily eg weaknesses of the justice system
  2. The media glamourises crime and creates the impression that it is a route to success (also black media)

Question 14

Media labelling and deviance amplification

Answer 14

• The media publicly names and shames individuals
• They develop a deviant career (turn to crime to survive)
• This creates deviance amplification if large numbers of people from particular backgrounds are prone to labelling
• Criminals cannot reform as their crimes in the media aren’t forgotten

Question 15

Media can teach people criminals skills

Answer 15

• Implies the media has a direct influence on people’s criminal tendencies also known as the hypodermic syringe effect in that the media has a drug like influence over people
• Encourages people to develop specialised skills enabling them to commit crime
• people feel aroused by illici stimuli
• Over exposure to illicit content can lead to people being desensitised to it (don’t see it as wrong)