MEDIA AND CRIME

Question 1

Outline the media’s role in agenda setting

Answer 1

Refers to the media’s influence over the issues people think about and the lower the media has to lay down topics for public discussion. Therefore, interactionists argues that news is socially constructed and is dependent on the news values of the journalists. This means people’s perceptions are heavily influenced by what media personnel choose to include or leave out of the media coverage.

Question 2

Give some evidence on how the media distorts the image of crime

Answer 2

The media over represent violent and sexual crime; 46% of crime in the media is based on this despite them only making up 3% recorded by police.
The media over exaggerating police success; the police want to present themselves under a good light; violent crime is mentioned more as the police are more effective in resolving those cases

Question 3

Outline news values in the media

Answer 3

News values are a key element in the social construction of news and refers to the criteria that journalists use on whether to include stories in the media. Some news values include:
Dramatisation (action and excitement)
Higher status (celebrities)
Risk (victim centred stories which provoke fear and vulnerability)

Question 4

Outline how the media could be a possible cause of crime

Answer 4

The hyperdermic syringe model argues that there is direct correlation between real life violence and violence portrayed in films and video games.
Media might cause crime through: imitation (providing deviant role models), arousal (through viewing violent imagery) stimulating desires for unnaffordable goods and glamourising crime

Question 5

What are the stages of a moral panic

Answer 5

Media report an event in an exaggerated way
This demonises groups as folk devils
The media predicts further trouble
The group reacts
The authorities stomp down hard on group

This process continues and the self fufilling prophecy. And the deviance amplification spiral is complete