Media and Crime Flashcards
What do Cohen and Young (1973) suggest about the nature of news?
The news is manufactured, not discovered.
List the various ‘news values’ that influence the selection of crime stories.
- Immediacy
- Dramatisation
- Personalisation
- Higher-status
- Simplification
- Novelty and unexpectedness
- Risk
- Violence
What common themes are depicted in fictional representations of crime?
- Violence
- Drug crimes
- Sex crimes
According to Mandel (1984), how many crime thrillers were sold worldwide from 1945 to 1984?
Over 10 billion crime thrillers.
Identify how media may cause crime and deviance.
- Imitation of deviant role models
- Arousal through viewing violent or sexual imagery
- Desensitisation to violence
- Transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques
- Stimulating desires for unaffordable goods
- Glamourising offending behaviour
- Portraying police as incompetent
True or False: The BBC article discusses the desensitisation to violence through true crime obsession.
True
What does the media exaggerate regarding crime?
The amount of violent and unusual crime, and the risks certain groups face as victims.
Who found that heavy users of television have higher levels of fear of crime?
Gerbner et al.
Fill in the blank: Left realists believe that mass media has increased a sense of _______ among poor and marginalised groups.
[relative deprivation]
What is the ‘deviancy amplification spiral’?
The process where an attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance.
According to Hayward and Young, how has crime become commodified?
Crime and its thrills have become commodified, with corporations using media images of crime to sell products.
What is the significance of Stanley Cohen’s ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’?
It discusses how media exaggerated violence and created moral panics around groups like mods and rockers.
What is a key criticism by McRobbie and Thornton (1995) regarding moral panics?
Moral panics are now routine and have less impact; there is little consensus on what is deviant.
What is the role of the media in the deviancy amplification process?
- Presents a distorted view of crime
- Creates public concern
- Over-reports crime and deviance
- Keeps issues high on the public agenda
- Influences police awareness and sensitivity
Fill in the blank: The media creates a _______ view of crime that can lead to public concern.
[distorted]
What is the outcome when the police become more aware of a problem due to media coverage?
They discover more crime, reinforcing the perception of increased crime levels.
What example illustrates the commodification of crime in society?
Hip hop combining images of street hustler criminality with consumerist success.
True or False: The media’s portrayal of crime is always accurate.
False
