media + crime Flashcards
some argue media gives a distorted view of crime why?
- media over respresents violent and sexual crimes when actually non violent crimes are more common
- media portrays criminals and victims as older middle class
- media exaggerates police success
what is news values ?
are the criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to be printed:
- immediacy
- personalisation
- simplification
- risk
reiner?
the media tends to focus on serious crimes which leads to public to overestimate the levels of these crimes
surette ? - fictional representations of crime?
calls the ‘backwards law’ as they are the opposite of official statistics and similar to news coverage
fiction crimes VS real life?
- violence, drugs, sex crimes are over represented: more property crimes occur
- sex crimes committed by psychopaths: committed by aquaintances
recent trends in media ?
- genre of reality TV featuring young non white underclass offenders
- increased tendency to show police as corrupt
- victims become more central where audiences are invited to identify with their suffering
media causes of crime?
there’s been a long concern that the media have a negative effect on attitudes, values and behaviour such as
- imitation providing deviant role models resulting in copycat behaviour
- desensitisation through repeated viewing of violence
- glamourising offending
how does hayward and jock view society ?
views modern society as media saturated society where we are immersed in the ‘mediascape’. the world is blurring between the imagine of crime and the reality.
media relating to relative deprivation?
emphasises consumption, corporations use media images of crime to sell products especially in the youth market. for example gangster rap and hip hop images this can lead to relative deprivation
what is moral panic ?
an exaggerated over reaction by society to a perceived problem, usually inspired by the media
example of moral panic ?
70s mugging and youth culture
hall et al - neo marxist approach ?
moral panics are used to distract attention from the crisis of capitalism. moral panic of mugging in 70s served to divide working class on racial ground and legitimate style of rule
McRobbie and thornton ?
moral panics are now routine and have less impact, there are less concrete social norms as there is little consensus about what is deviant so it so harder for the media to create panics about them
