The media Flashcards
The media and crime COHEN
Mods and Rockers
- identified as folk devils
- created moral panic as media exaggerated conflict
- led to deviance amplification
The media and crime HALL
Black ‘muggers’
- distract from the crisis of capitalism
- repressive policing
- dividing the WC on racial grounds
What does research show about the medias representations of crime?
Between 30-70% of the new media is devoted to various forms of crime and deviance. However, this is often distorted.
What are the 6 distorted representations of crime from the media?
1- overrepresent violent and sexual crimes (only makes up 3% of actual crime)
2- Portrays criminals as older
(Felson- age fallacy)
3- Coverage exaggerates police success
4- Exaggerate chances of victimisation
5- Crimes reported as a series of separate events rather than looking at underlying causes
6- Overplay unusual crime (F- dramatic fallacy) criminals who solve it are seen as clever and daring (F- ingenuity fallacy)
Why has the media changed its crime focus since the 1960s?
Shifted from murder and petty crime to drugs, child abuse, terrorism etc
- rising crime rate meant crime had to be ‘special’ to attract coverage
How does coverage of rape distort the true nature of this crime?
Most cases the perpetrator is known to the victim, exception rather than a rule
X Feminists argue this does not look for the underlying causes such as the patriarchy or misogyny
X not usually a psychopathic stranger
What are news values?
The criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into the news
(they are gatekeepers)
What are the 8 news values?
1- Immediacy (breaking news)
2- Dramatisation (exciting)
3- Personal interests (individuals)
4- Higher status (celebrities)
5- Simplification (good n evil)
6- Novelty (unusual)
7- Risk (creates fear/moral panic)
8- Violence
What are fictional crimes according to Surette?
Claims that fictional crimes follow a ‘law of opposites’
What are 5 trends in fictional crimes?
1- Property crime is underrepresented
2- Real life homicides are from brawls and disputes rather than because if calculated greed
3- Fictional sex crimes are committed by psychopathic strangers, rather than acquaintances
4- Fictional villains are MC, higher status, white males
5- Fictional law enforcement usually get the criminal
What are the 7 points to media as a cause for crime?
1- Desensitisation
2- Imitation/copycat
3- Knowledge
4- Arousal/glamourising crime
5- Capitalist values
6- Cybercrime
7- Fear of crime
Desensitisation
Violent images no longer scare people because they have been exposed to them al their life
- images have to become even more violent to scare their audiences
- normalised, people see it as common and do it themselves
Evaluation of Desensitisation
X Functionalist say this deters criminals and is good for boundary maintenance
X Hypodermic syringe is not true
- don’t all passively take on crime and commit
Imitatoioin/copycat crime
‘Video nasties’- commit crime due to exposure on TV and video games
- influence view on reality
Evaluation of Imitation/copycat crime
X Violence on Tv and video games has very little impact on deviance from the viewer
X other factors (psychological, MH)
X can distinguish between reality and fiction
Knowledge
Some police officers believe that crime shows like ‘Law and Order’ have made criminals more aware of the need to eliminate forensic evidence
Evaluation of Knowledge
X deterrent, easily caught
Arousal/ glamourising crime
Fenwick and Hayward
- crime is packaged and marketed to young people as a romantic, exciting, cool and fashionable cultural symbol
‘heroine chique’
Evaluation of Arousal/glamourising crime
X distinguish between reality and fiction
X treat people as puppets
Capitalist values
Encourages greed
‘Wolf of Wall Street’
- on the side of the criminal, wealth from crime is good
Evaluation of capitalist values
X reject ideology
X won’t have opportunity
Cybercrime
Jewkes- categories
- cyber trespassing, hacking
- cyber deception, theft
- cyber violence, stalking, bullying
- global cybercrime
Evaluation of Cybercrime
X catch criminals use technology as forces against them
Fear of crime
Schlesinger and Tumber
- the more TV people watch the higher their fear of becoming a victim of crime
- concept of risk
- more fearful, more crime
Evaluation of Fear crime
X correlation distorted
X cause and effect
Functionalist link to media
Value consensus and boundary maintenance
Marxism link to media
RC control media, WCC not covered
- media fuels greed through advertisements
Left realist link to media
Exposure, relative deprivation
Subcultural link to media
Media is defining the subcultural identities
Postmodernist link to media
Risk society, media creating fear
