Media and crime Flashcards
Give 3 ways in which media representation of crime is distorted
The media over-represent sexual crime-Soothill and Walby found that newspaper reporting of rape cases greatly increased. The coverage also focused on identifying the ‘sex beast’ by using labels such as ‘balaclava rapist’ which portrays rapists as psychopathic strangers, when in fact most perpetrators are known to the victim.
Age fallacy- Felson argues that media portray criminals and victims are older and middle class. But they can also be young and w/c
Clear up rates- Exaggerated by media to show police success rates in catching criminals but at times they are not
Media involvement in the social construction of crime news
The distorted representation of crime in the media clearly showsthat crime news is a social construct.
some stories are selected as newsworthy and then broadcast/printed, while others are rejected.
S. Cohen and Young argue news is not out there to be discovered, it is manufactured by journalists, editors, directors
How is news socially constructed
Agenda setting refers to the media’s influence over the issues that people think and talk about. e.g. Crime
However, they can not report every single crime that happens so they use news values to help them decide which crime stories are included and which are ignored.
News Values
are the criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into the newspaper or news programme.
News values include:
Immediacy – live coverage of events, ‘breaking news’
Dramatisation – action and excitement
Personalisation – human interest stories about individuals
Simplification - of the story
Novelty and unexpectedness – a new angle
Risk – victim-centred stories
Violence
(can use the recent knife crimes of UK person in France)
Fictional media representations of crime
Fictional representations of crime (TV dramas, films and novels) follow the law of opposites according to Surette – they are the opposite of the OCS and similar to factual news coverage of crime:
-Property crime is underrepresented, while violent and sex crimes are over-represented
-it focuses on murder and other violent crimes as a result of greed and calculation (in reality most real life homicides are a result of domestic disputes and brawls), sex crimes are shown as being committed by psychopathic strangers (in reality most sex crime victims know the attacker)
-the offenders are often high status, middle class males
-the police clear up rate is high so the police are presented in a positive light.
+C of fictional media representations of crime
more recent reality infotainment programmes tend to focus on working class, young, e/m offenders. There is also an increase in showing the police as corrupt, brutal and less successful in solving crimes. Finally, the victims are a focus with the audience invited to empathise with their suffering.
The media as a cause of crime – relative deprivation
Left Realists argue that the media can cause crime through their portrayals of ‘normal’ lifestyles which can encourage people to commit crimes.
The mass media do this by creating a sense of relative deprivation – a sense of lacking what others seem to have – among the poor and marginalised.
Today, everyone has access to the media and the media present everyone with images of a materialistic good life of leisure, fun and consumer goods as the norm we should all conform to.
This creates a sense of relative deprivation and social exclusion among those who can not afford these goods.
This can lead to crime to obtain the material goods people can’t afford, but the media portray as desirable.
+C of Left realist view on media and crime
they trust the OCS which show that w/c are criminals and therefore the WCC which do not appear in OCS because the law is selectively enforced
Causes of crime by media- Deviancy amplification and moral panics
Deviancy amplification is the process through which media label certain groups in society as a threat to social order.
Moral panics are ways in which media exaggerate certain events to be a threat the social order.
Cohen argues that moral panics arise in times of boundary crisis created by social change, when there is uncertainty about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour
Causes of crime- dev amp and moral panics (processes of dev amp and moral panics)
1)The media exaggerate an event as a social problem and identify a group in society as folk devils - a threat to social order.
2)The media demonise the group - present them in a negative, stereotypical light and exaggerate the scale of the problem.
3)The media engage in symbolisation – they focus on the symbols of the group such as clothes and present them as a threat.
4)This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the group identified as a problem start to see themselves as a social problem.
5)This causes the group to commit even more of the criminal and deviant activities. This is deviancy amplification
6)The media report these events in an even more exaggerated manner.
7)This causes the moral panic – the moral entrepreneurs condemn the group and demand a police crackdown on the group.
8)This leads to police targeting that group and the cycle of labelling and increased criminality starts again
Other moral panics in society
Hall argues that the moral panic about ‘muggers’ was created by the media as a distraction from the crisis of capitalism in the 1970s in order to divide the w/c along ethnic lines.
also single mums
+C of deviancy amplification
McRobbie and Thornton argue that moral panics are an outdate notion because:
Frequency - Increasing number of moral panics means they are no longer rare or noteworthy.
Context - In the 1960s moral panics would scapegoat a particular group and outlaw them as folk devils – today there is no one single response to a panic rather many different viewpoints and values.
Reflexivity - As moral panics are so well known many groups try to create them for their own benefit and the media are aware of this and do not wish to pursue a moral panic uncritically.
Media as causes of crime- Cyber crime
Cyber crime is defined by Thomas and Loader as computer mediated illegal activities conducted through global electronic networks.
It includes:
Cyber trespass – hacking and sabotage such as spreading viruses.
Cyber deception and theft – identity theft, phishing (obtaining bank account details online through deception) and illegal downloads.
Cyber pornography – such as child pornography.
Cyber violence – such as online bullying.
Policing cyber crimes is difficult because of the huge scale of the Internet, its globalised nature which poses jurisdiction problems (which country is responsible for policing it) and limited police resources.
The mediacausing thecommodificationof crime
How do the mass media encourage people to consume crime news?
Hayward and Young argue that late modernity is a media-saturated society in which we are immersed in the mediascape – an ever growing tangle of digital images, which also include images of crime. However, the image (representation) of crime and the reality of crime are blurred. For example, gang assaults are no longer just caught on camera (e.g. on CCTV or police patrol car cameras), but are actually staged for the camera(deliberately filmed by the gang) and uploaded online as ‘underground fight videos’.
The mediacausing thefearof crime
How do the mass media cause people to worry about crime?
The media exaggerate the risks of certain groups of people becoming its victims such as women and the elderly.
This causes an unrealistic fear of crime among those groups.
Gerbner et al found that heavy users of television (over 4hrs per day) had higher levels of fear of crime.
Schlesinger and Tumber found a correlation between media consumption and fear of crime. They found that tabloid readers and heavy users of TV are more likely to fear becoming victims of crime.
