Media and Crime

Question 1

Galtung and Ruge - news values

Answer 1

Galtung & Ruge 1965
1.Immediacy
2.Dramatization – action and excitement
3.Personalisation – human interest stories
4.Higher status persons and celebrities
5.Simplification – eliminating shades of grey
6.Novelty or unexpectedness – a new angle
7.Risk – victim-centred stories about vulnerability and fear
8.Violence – especially visible and spectacular acts

Question 2

Williams and Dickinson - crime in newspaper

Answer 2

Williams and Dickinson (1993) British newspapers devote 30% of their news space to crime.

Williams and Dickinson found 65% of crime stories in ten national newspapers were about violence. In the same year (1989) the British Crime Survey reported only 6% of crimes involved violence.

Question 3

Schlesinger and Tumber - media focus on crime

Answer 3

Schlesinger and Tumber (1994) found that in the 60’s the focus was on murders and petty crimes, by the 1990’s reporting included more on drugs, child abuse, terrorism, football hooliganism and mugging. The media has also been preoccupied with sex crimes.

Question 4

Baudrillard - people have no understanding of crime

Answer 4

Baudrillard – Media creates reality – people have no understanding of crime only the representations of crime they experience through the mass media.