Media And Crime Flashcards
What are the news values identified by Galtung and Ruge?
Immediacy, Dramatization, Personification, Higher status persons, Simplification, Novelty, Risk, Violence
These values influence how news stories are prioritized and presented.
What is immediacy, dramatisation and simplification?
Immediacy - self explanatory
Dramatisation - action and excitement
Simplification - eliminating shades of grey
What studies support news values according to Ericson et al?
45-71% of Toronto’s quality press and radio news was about various forms of deviance
What percentage of news space do British newspapers devote to crime according to Williams and Dickinson?
30%
What does Surette’s ‘law of opposites’ state about fictional representations of crime?
They are opposite to official statistics and similar to news coverage
This suggests a disconnect between reality and media portrayals of crime.
What are common characteristics of fictional sex crimes?
Perpetrated by psychopathic strangers
This contrasts with real-life statistics where many sex crimes are committed by acquaintances.
According to Schlesinger and Tumber, what change occurred in crime reporting from the 1960s to the 1990s?
Increased focus on drugs, child abuse, terrorism, football hooliganism, and mugging
Media has been preoccupied with sex crimes
What does Chris Greer say about media and violent crime?
All media tend to exaggerate the extent of violent crime
This suggests a tendency to sensationalize crime rather than report it accurately.
What percentage of crime stories in national newspapers were about violence according to Williams and Dickinson?
65%
This figure contrasts sharply with the British Crime Survey, which reported only 6% of crimes involved violence.
What do Marxist theorists argue about the reporting of crime?
Crimes of the ruling class are under-reported, while crimes of the working class are over-reported
- bias in media coverage that serves the interests of the ruling class.
- maintains control over powerless groups
How does crime reporting reinforce stereotypes according to feminist theorists?
Women are portrayed as victims and violence against women is under-reported
Reporting of sex crimes againt women as a way of providing entertainment
What is the pluralist view of crime reporting in the media?
It helps keep social solidarity and reflects public concerns
all forms of media are owned by different owners/ideologies across the board
According to postmodernist theory, what is the media’s role in understanding crime?
Media creates reality; people understand crime only through representations they experience through mass media
According to Baudrillard
