THE MASS MEDIA AND CRIME: KEY TERMS AND ISSUES Flashcards
Media representation of crime
Nearly 30% of news space is of crime. Therefore it means that we may have a distorted picture of the level of crimes that happen around us. Compared to the official statistics of crime, the media over-represents violent and sexual crime due to its ‘newsworthiness’ that has sexual and graphic factors. Ditton and Duffy found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes yet, this only made up 3% of all crime recorded by the police.
It is also biased on the coverage of police success. Furthermore it exaggerates the risk of victimisation especially of women, white people and higher status individuals.
Social construction of news
The distorted picture of crime by the news media reflects the fact that news is a social construction. It is the outcome of a social process in which some potential stories are selected while others are rejected. Cohen and Young note that news is not discovered but manufactured.
These ‘news values’ which they tend to look at are, immediacy, dramatisation, personalisation, higher-status, simplification, novelty or unexpectedness, risk and violence.
Deviancy amplification (The two key studies on the role of the media in the process of creating a moral panic and amplifying the crime)
Stan Cohen’s Folk devils and moral panics - This study is about the mods and rockers conflict of the 1960s in which the media exaggerated the numbers involved and the extent of the violence and damage, distorted the picture through dramatic reporting and sensational headlines. It then predicted further conflict and violence would result, Furthermore the symbolisation, was their clothes, bikes and scooters, hairstyles music etc were negatively labelled and associated with deviance.
Policing the crises by Hall et al - study done in 1970s found that when there was a crisis in capitalism, the government needed a scapegoat in order to lead people’s attentions elsewhere. With the help of media, they amplified this new crime called ‘mugging’ in which they associated it with black young youths especially creating a moral panic and deviating people’s attention from the actual problems which was the heavy rise of unemployment.
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY MEDIA GROUP (GUMG)
They noted that there was a hierarchy of access to the media on crime issues in which the police have the greatest access to the media because of their large institution with status and credibility. This means that they are more likely to be the primary definers of news about crime, setting the agenda about what crime stories are reported and how they are reported.
‘NEWS-VALUES’
These ‘news values’ which they tend to look at are, immediacy, dramatisation, personalisation, higher-status, simplification, novelty or unexpectedness, risk and violence.
Cyber crime
The internet has now opened up new areas of crime. Cyber crimes now include identity theft, cyber deception, and illegal downloading, internet pornography, and cyber bullying.
It has also opened up new ways for surveillance and control of the population.
State and corporate crime
Marxists argue that the media promotes ideas that help justify and support the actions of the powerful. State crimes such as the invasion of Iraq. Corporate crimes where profit is treated as positive, while marxists regard it as theft. The treatment of deaths caused by corporate activity as accidents rather than unlawful killing.
How have the effects of the media been investigated?
Case studies of violent people usually concluded that their actions had been influenced by the media, though it is argued that these may be untypical cases since most people who watch or read violent material don’t then become violent.
BANDURA’S laboratory experiment
Bandura investigated the extent to which children will copy violence they see in the media.
