media relationship with crime

Question 1

key areas

Answer 1

1. Representations of crime in the media
2. Media is a CAUSE of crime
3. Moral Panics
4. Fear of Crime
5. new forms of crime not related to the media

Question 2

representations of crime in the media

Answer 2

Ericson - crime and deviance takes up a lot of media coverage, found that 45-71% of quality press and radio was about crime

Williams & Dickson - not British newspapers devote 30% of their space to crime.

6 distorted images of crime

1. overrepresentation of violent and sexual crime, Ditton and Duffy - 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes yet they only make up 3 % of police recorded crime
2. Media portrays criminals and victims as older and more middle class than those actually found, CJS Felson calls this -age-fallacy’
3. Media coverage exaggerate police success in clearing up cases - police want to present themselves in a good light in the media as they have huge coverage and media over-reps violent crime which has higher clear up rate than property crime.
4. Media exaggerates the rise of victimisation - especially to women, white people and higher status individuals
5. Crime is reported as a series of separate events without structure and without examining underlying causes
6. Media overplay extraordinary crime and underplays ordinary crime Felson calls this ‘dramatic fallacy’ - media images lead us to believe that to commit crime you need to be daring and clever - ingenuity fallacy

significance of the news

• the news is a ‘socially manufactured’ product involving a complex process between jouranlsists and editors applying news values to judge wether a story is newsworthy
• types of crime that attracts large audiences are directly linked to violence or sexual crimes = more drama than say property crimes
• news values end up mis-representing the true reality of crime as Ditton and Duffy found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes yet they only make up 3 % of police recorded crime
• Walby notes newspapers reporting rape increased from 25% in 1951 to over 33% in 1985

Felson’s 5 fallacies

Age Fallacy - all ages involved in committing crime = X

Class fallacy - middle class most likely to be victims = X

Ingenuinity Fallacy - Criminals are clever = X spontaneity

Police Fallacy - media see police as efficient = X

Dramatic Fallacy - Focus on most violent crime which heightens fear of crime, especially elderly and women by over-focusing on crimes against these groups

Question 3

media is a cause of crime

Answer 3

7 ways media causes crime
1. Imitation

2. Arousal
3. Desensitation
4. Transmits criminal knowledge / techniques
5. Stimulates the desire for unaffordable goods
6. Portrays the Police as incompetent
7. Glamorises crime

left realism - - media aids in creating a sense of relative deprivation amongst the poor and marginalised groups of society e.g young and ethnic min groups

• in late modern society - even poorest sectors of society had media access - displaying images of the ‘good life’ based on leisure and consumption as the norm to which we should conform = heightened sense of relative dep.
• as Merton’s strain theory argues –> Lack of legit means = crime

cultural criminology - media turns crime itself into the commodity that people desire, media encourages people to ‘consume’ crime

Hayward and Young - media -staurated late modern society immerses us in the ‘mediascape’ (never ending string of images bliurring image and reality of crime)

e.g gang crimes are not just caught on camera but staged for the camera and then later packaged together in underground fish videos that can be found on the internet

commodification of crime - a late modern society is also characterised by excitement, consumption and immediacy - crime has become commidified as companies r using the media images to sell products egg rap music

• crime and deviance has thus became a ‘style’ packaged and marketed to young people as romantic, exciting etc
• counte -cultures are even branded and packaged and now sold e.g graffiti and guerrilla marketing technique
• designer brands have become symbols of deviance e.g Bluewater shopping centres ban people who wear hoodies and even in some bars police compile a list of brands seen as problematic

passive

1. Hypodermic Syringe Theory
2. Imitation/Copycat theory
3. De-sensitisation

active

1. Two-Step Flow
2. Selective Filter
3. Uses and gratification Model
4. Cultural effects

Question 4

moral panics

Answer 4

Becker saw the media as one of the most powerful agents in imposing labels in the development of a deviant career

deviancy amplification by the media is a variation of the self-fulfilling prophecy developed by Becker

concept of moral and deviancy amplification emphasises the idea that deviance is a social construction

media select emotive aspects of an event to portray which determine public reaction

as a result of public reaction agents of social control such as the police may intervene more strongly to outbreaks

this can in turn increase the number of arrests leading to a spiral increased police activity and mass public concern, which is defined as a deviancy amplification spiral

this can be interpreted as a self fulfilling prophecy

Stan Cohen: Folk Devils

Mods and Rockers - Brighton beach

over-dramatised as ‘mass riots’ rather than what they were which was some disagreements between kids

deviancy amplification

neo-marxism - the media cannot tell us what to think but its can tell us what to think about

media ‘gatekeeps’ information

media can set the agenda about what is discussed

Taylor, Walton and Young are the process of deviancy amplification and moral panics, while not deliberate can be used to support capitalism - distraction technique

Stuart Hall et al - provided empirical evidence of the role of the media in creating a moral panic in Policing Crisis

moral panics - terrorism

Nandi and platt, Phillips (from C + I)

since sept 11 2001 the terms ‘Muslim’, ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘terrrorist’ have been added indiscriminately to the volatile mix of ‘immigrant’ etc and the pressure on the gov to ‘do something’ has increased

muslims are now presented as a differ nt kind of ‘folk devil’

party explains recent concerns about multiculturalism, and the rapid collapse if security fears associated with a religious minority into a racist discourse of ‘civilisation versus barbarism’

Question 5

moral panics evaluation

Answer 5

positive

combines action and structural approached to studies of the media and moral panics, so that the strengths of each can compensate for the weaknesses of the other. It is therefore a more complete perspective than say interactionism

negative

• fact that folk devils and moral panics have been added to the dictionary illustrates the importance of Cohen’s work in demonstrating how important the media is in defining public opinion
• one only needs to exam contemporary media to see that these process are still at work

McRobbie and Thornton

• concept of moral panics is outdated - new media and new companies have changed the way events are reported e.g 24 hour rolling news = new events –> cannot sustain audience interest
• 5 reasons as to why moral panics are outdated
  1. frequency

2. Context
3. Reflexivity
4. Difficulty
5. Rebound

(add to this p63)

Question 6

media creates new crimes

Answer 6

cyber crime

cyber deception

cyber pornogrophy

cyber violence