the media and crime

Question 1

hypodermic syringe model

Answer 1

believes that the media can have a direct and immediate effect on the audience. the model sees the audience as a ‘homogenous mass; as passive and believing what they see in the media without questioning the context

Question 2

how might hypodermic syringe model cause crime

Answer 2

• new media means that violent imagery is found everywhere, and people can access it whenever they want- impossible to control
• digital tech means its interactive
• imitation; by providing deviant role models, resulting in ‘copycat behaviour’
• arousal; e.g through viewing violent or sexual imagery
• desensitisation; e.g through repeated viewing of violence

Question 3

evidence of hypodermic syringe model

Answer 3

• newson: references to james bulger murder. asserted that violent videos could lead to violent action
• anderson: media violence increased the likelihood of aggressive and violent behaviour, both immediately and in the long term
• bobo doll experiment
• himmelweit et al: desensitisation, repeated exposure has gradual drip drip effects

Question 4

eval of hypodermic syringe model

Answer 4

• cumberbatch: review of previous studies does not show the media causes violence
• almost impossible to avoid the hawthorne effect
• problem with how ‘media violence’ is defined
• small samples

Question 5

relative deprivation

Answer 5

• the media has increased our sense of relative deprivation
• cultural inclusion promoted by the media - exposure to consumer goods and luxury lifestyles raises expectations. the economically excluded cannot afford this lifestyle which creates status frustration so they turn to crime e.g lewis’ example of looting in the london riots

Question 6

young; bulimic society - relative dep

Answer 6

late modern societies are media saturated and everyone is included in consumer culture through constant exposure of advertising - intensifies sense of frustratration

Question 7

evaluation of relative dep

Answer 7

• assumes the media has the same effect on everyone i.e that they will commit crime… fails to explain why some people who are relatively deprived don’t go on to commit crime. assumes the audience is passive and accepts the media messages about the importance of having consumer goods
• assumes all media is the same and contains the same messages about consumerism, but media does not do this
• doesn’t explain crimes such as sexual assault or rape

Question 8

commodification of crime

Answer 8

crimes and its thrills being commodified. corporations and advertisers use media images of crime to sell products, especially in the youth market

Question 9

fenwick and hayward - commodification of crime

Answer 9

‘crime is packaged and marketed to young people as a romantic, exciting, cool and fashionable cultural symbol

Question 10

evidence of commodification of crime

Answer 10

• hayward and young; example of car ads featuring street riots, joy riding, graffiti and pyromania
• fashion industry and its advertisers trade on images of the forbidden ‘heroin chic’, violence against women
• graffiti being used in a ‘guerilla marketing technique called ‘brandalism’

Question 11

evaluation of commodification of crime

Answer 11

• deterministic; assumes that the promotion of crime related merchandise makes people more criminal
• explanation ignores the way in which police is commodified both in reality (e.g nypd street wear) and fictional programmes (e.g buying brooklyn99 merch that promotes the role of police)
• hard to isolate commodification of crime from all other influences on behaviour and show it causes an increase in crime

Question 12

reduction of social controls

Answer 12

greer and reiner suggest that, even if people are motivated to commit crime they may not do so if there is effective internal and external controls

Question 13

how might reduction of social controls

Answer 13

media may undermine these controls by mocking the police and cjs. glamourising crime, creating sympathy for criminals, desensitizing people

Question 14

evaluation of reduction of social controls

Answer 14

• media doesn’t change the fact you can face punishments for committing crimes
• can only explain certain crimes

Question 15

cyber crime

Answer 15

the internet provides us with new types of crime e.g upskirting and new ways of committing crime e.g committing fraud over the internet

Question 16

how can cyber crime cause crime - jewkes

Answer 16

the internet creates opportunity to commit both ‘conventional crimes’ such as fraud, and ‘new crimes’ using tools’ such as software piracy

Question 17

how can cyber crime cause crime - wall

Answer 17

wall identifies categories;
1. cyber-trespass - includes hacking and sabotages such as spreading viruses
2. cyber deception and theft - including identity theft, ‘phishing’, and violation of intellectual property rights
3. cyber pornography - including porn involving minors, and opportunities for children to acess porn
4. cycberviolence - ie. cyber stalking
5. global cyber crime - poses problems of jurisdiction

Question 18

evidence of cyber crime

Answer 18

• detica: estimates financial cybercrime such as identity theft, online scams etc cost the uk £27 billion each year.
• internet based fraud e.g ‘nigerian letters’
• cyber attacks e.g talktalk in 2015 where cyber criminals targeted its website in an attempt to steal details of customer identities and financial information

Question 19

evaluation of cyber crime

Answer 19

• positivist victimology: we need to examine the role of victims and look at how people can try and avoid becoming a victim e.g secure passwords instead of focusing on the internet causing more crime
• cyber crime does not always lead to new types of crime being committed - it’s a new way of committing old crimes. they would still exist even if the technology didn’t e.g fraud

Question 20

increases fear of crime

Answer 20

the media is exaggerating the extent of crime and the likelihood of becoming a victim - so people become more fearful of crime
- changes attitudes

Question 21

evidence of increased fear of crime- gerbner et al

Answer 21

heavy users of tv (over 4 hours a day) had higher levels of fear of crime

Question 22

evidence of increased fear of crime - schlesinger and tumber

Answer 22

correlation between media consumption and fear of crime, with tabloid readers and heavy users of tv expressing greater fear of becoming a victim, especially of physical attacks and muggings

Question 23

evaluation of increased fear of crime

Answer 23

audience is capable of understanding the difference between reality and media reps - so its not the media itself that causes a fear of crime but rather its peoples interpretations of what they see that is the issue

Question 24

moral panics

Answer 24

cohen- folk devils
- relatively minor disturbances between mods and rockers

media overreacted
- exaggeration and distortion
- prediction of further disorder
- symbolisation - group labeled negatively e.g biker jackets seen as sign of rebellion

Question 25

evaluation of moral panics - mcrobbie and thornton

Answer 25

concept no longer useful because of the impact of new media and 24hr rolling news cycle. they must post to new stories to keep their audience which makes it difficult to sustain a moral panic

Question 26

evaluation of moral panics - pluralists, postmodernists

Answer 26

argues theres a huge diversity of reports and interpretations of events, citizen journalism - people more sceptical, moral entrepreneurs can be challenges

Question 27

evaluation of moral panics - hunt

Answer 27

boundaries between moral and immoral behaviour increasingly blurred - the public do not equally regard the same behaviour as wrong e,g some see drug taking as wrong but others don’t

Question 28

evaluation of moral panics - beck

Answer 28

we live in a risk society and we perceive lots of threats e.g pollution, global warming, knife crime, illegal immigration. so the idea that we are under threat is normalised and being at risk from a folk devil is just one amongst many

Question 29

surette - the backwards law

Answer 29

the way in which the media portrays crime is the opposite of reality
- fictional programmes:
property crime is underrepresented
violence, drugs and sex are overrepresented
murder shown to be product of greed and calculation
sex crimes shown to be carried out by psychopathic strangers

• factual programmes:
  narration controlled by producers and editors. chase scenes edited to make them look exciting
  violent crimes and clear up rates overrepresented
  events are simplified, and decontextualised

Question 30

felson - fallacies of crime

Answer 30

• felson argues general public has fallacies or mistaken beliefs about crime which are perpetuated by the media
• examples of some fallacies
  – ‘not me fallacy’ illusion that we could never commit a crime and ignoring all illegal behaviour we may have committed
  – ‘dramatic fallacy’ dramatisation and romanticisation of crimes. clever muderers, media makes the battle between the criminal and police see, exciting, publicised offenses are far more dramatic than real lift theft and fraud

Question 31

cohen and young

Answer 31

argues news is not discovers, it’s ‘manufactured’ making it a social construction
- media sets the agenda by directing our attention to some acts of crime - we talk about these and are unaware of others simply because the news didn’t report it
- media can’t report every single criminal or deviant act that occurs. media personnel are selective about what they report on or ignore. people are only able to discuss and form opinions about the crime and deviance they have been informed about

Question 32

news values - galtung and rouge

Answer 32

• journalists beliefs about what kind of stories attract a bigger audience
  e.g personalisation, extraordinaires, elite persons, negativity
• crimes that are not extraodinary e.g burglary less likely to be reported than murder
• crimes that are easy to understand (unambiguous) more likely to be reported e.g complex corporate crime cases less likely to be reported