Media And Crime Flashcards
What did Williams and Dickson calculate the % of news spaces newspapers devoted to crime?
30%
Who is news a social construction and who says it’s “not discovered but manufactured”
Distorted picture of crime by the media reflects fact news is socially constructed as it doesn’t exist waiting to be discovered by journalist, stories are accepted or rejected
Cohen and young say “news is not discovered but manufactured”
What are some news values and who came up with it?
News values are criteria by journalist and editors and if they are present they have better chance at making the news
Jewkes (2011) says these are some:
- dramatisation: if event is considered to be dramatic enough (eg serial killer rather than a single murderer)
- Proximity: if event has cultural meaning or is physically close (eg Manchester bombing)
- simplification: events are easy to
Understand - risk: if a event can be posed as serious making or risk to general public
What are a strength and weakness of news values
+ it shows how media is socially constructed and doesn’t represent true crime,
❌ fails to acknowledge media is just doing its job and getting sales
What does mandel say % of TV shows and movies fall under the crime genre?
Madel found 25% of TV shows and 20% of movies fell under crime genre
What do Surret argue media like TV, film or books follow and construct?
They follow the “law of opposites” and a backwards version of reality similar to news coverage:
- property crime under represented while violence, drugs and sex over
- real life homicides due to brawls and domestic dispitues fictional ones are of greed and calculation
- fictional crimes commited by psychopathic strangers rather than people u know
- villains tend to be high status, middle age white men and cops get the bad guy
What is a criticism of fictional representations of crime and law of opposites
Recent trends in fictional representation of crime don’t follow law of opposites
New genre of infotainment shows like ‘COPS’ feature young, non white, underclass offenders
Also shows protesting police as corrupt and brutal eg line of duty
How has media been blamed as a cause of crime?
Blamed on negatively effecting attitudes and values of people in society especially those most susepitable to violence eg young, lower class and uneducated
Eg in 1950s horror comics blames and recently video games like GTA or rap music have been blamed
It can normalise behaviours and label certain groups as criminal creating a Moral panic
What is the hypodermic syringe model and 3 points from it
Several ways media “injects” it’s influence into viewer leading to crime and deviance:
- imitation recreating already existing crime eg copy cat killers
- desensitisation: see violence every day in media so makes crime see normal
- glamorising offending: presenting crimes and criminals as rebels and cool
How does the case of Nathan martinez support hypodermic syringe model?
Nathan martinez watched the violent film ‘natural born killers’ abour 10x before killing his step mother and half sister.
His friends said he wished to “go out in a blaze of glory” like the films main characters
However the film director said Martinez would have been violent anyway cause he had a violent father
How would livingstone criticise hypothermic syringe model
Livingstone says despite lack of evidence between media and criminal behaviour
people are still preoccupied with its impact on children cause of our desire to see childhood as time of innocence in private sphere
How does relative depravation and media relate?
Left realist say mass media increases sense of relative depravation in poor/marginalised groups supported by social realist like Young
Today peioke everyone has access to media whixh present them with materialistic “good life” of lesuire fun and consumer goods. This creates relative depravation and social exclusion by poor groups causing them to commit crime
Merton argues pressure to conform to social norms causes deviant behaviour when ways to achieve materialistic goals through legitimate means are blocked so media plays role in promotion crime
Socially included but economically excluded
What do cultural criminologist say about media and crime?
Cultural criminologists say media turns itself into commodity that ppl desire so rather than encouraging crime media makes people wanna consume crime in images they offer
What do cultural criminologists Hayward and young (2012) say about media and crime
They claim late modern soxisty is media saturated as ppl immersed in “mediascape” -ever expanding tangle of fluid images including crime- this blurs boundaries between images and reality of crime making them not separable
Eg gang fights are not just caught on camera but now staged and later edited as package as a “underground fight video”
Or
Police car cameras don’t just record police activity but now change how they work
What are some examples of shows that blur the boundaries heteeen images and reality of crime?
To catch a predator or don’t pay we’ll take it away
How much of it is staged and how much of it is real?
How is media commodified through advertising and who says it is?
Corporations and advertisers use images of crimes and its thrills to sell products to youths eg gangsters, rap and hip-hop combined with street hustler criminality and consumerist success
Hayward says “crime is packaged and marketed to young people as cool and romantic cultural symbol”
How would people support the consumerist and post modern interpretations of media and crime and how would u critic it
✅Baudrillard says society is totally consumed by media, characteristics of postmodernity and its production and consumption of signs in media blur the light between buying a product marketed as deviant and real crime
❌ignores fact individuals can distinguish between images in media and real crime
How is a moral panic defined
An exaggerated over-reaction by society to a perceived problem usually inspired by the media and the reaction dwarfs the seriousness of the actual problem
How does Cohens study of the mods and rockers show a moral panic?
He examined media’s reactions to mods and rockers, 2 working class teenage groups in England in the 1960s
While the disorder was minor the media overreacted portraying the events as a major disaster, the events can be contained to 3 elements:
- Exaggeration and distortion: media exaggerates number involved and damage/disorder they cause using dramatic headlines
- prediction: media predict further violence will occur
- symbolisation: symbols of mods and rockers negatively labelled, associated with deviance and connect it to other bikers across the country
What does cohen argue the media’s portrayle of mods and rockers produced
It produced a deviance amplification spiral by making it seem problem was getting out of hand=calls for police and courts creating more marginalisation and less tolerance of them…
How does cohen argue the media creates amplifies deviance, folk devils and other such shenanigans
Media amplified deviance by defining the two groups and their subcultures creating more youth groups and put them into distinct identities. Encouraged polarisation of them and a self fulfilling prophecy as youth acted our roles assigned by media
He says media crucial in creating moral panic as in large scale society peioke rely on news for info. Eg in mods and rocker portrayed teenagers as folk devils and threats to society
What is a contemporary example of moral panic
2022-23 American new right using term “woke” and rallying against perceived threat of transgender people spurred on by internet political media and outlets like Fox News as well as politicians like Ron desantis and Donald trump
Also moral panic over terrorists and Muslims after 9/11 or Isis
How does sociologist mcrobbie critics cohens idea of moral panics
Argue we live in age of new media and ppl have access to diverse info and journalism through blogs, social media and streaming services where moral panics are routine and so have less impact on audiences
