The Media And Crime

Question 1

Misrepresentation of crime

Answer 1

News values and crime coverage:
Reiner suggests that media coverage of crime is filtered through values and assumptions of journalists about what makes a story news worthy.
Jewkes suggest that stories containing the following news values are more likely to be reported. Dramatisation, risk, status and children etc.

+ Plenty of supporting evidence in the news and can be applied to forms of news media.
X This approach generalises the way journalists operate and suggests they have little innteregraty when doing their jobs.

Question 2

Misrepresentation of crime

Answer 2

Fictional representation of crime:
Surette argues that fictional representation of crime follows the ‘law of opposites’ as they construct a backwards version of reality, similar to news coverage.
Property crime are underrepresented, while drug and sex crimes are over.
Fictional cops usually get their man.

+ Plenty of supporting evidence claims that fictional representation of crime follow the law of opposites, such as the dark knight.
X Recent trends in fictional representation of crime do not follow the law of opposites, such as top boy.

Question 3

Media causes crime

Answer 3

The Hypodermic Syringe Model:
This model suggest their are several ways the media ‘injects’ its influence into the viewer.
Imitation, knowledge transmission and glamorising offending.

X Schramm- argues under some circumstances television is harmful, for some under the same circumstances it may be beneficial. For most children television is neither harmful or beneficial.

Question 4

The Media ‘packages and sells’ Crime

Answer 4

Crime and Blurring Line of Reality:
Hayward and young- claim that modern society is media-saturated, and immerse themselves in media scape (ever-expanding image of crime).
This blurs the boundaries between images and reality of crime, making them no longer separable.
For example, police car cameras do not just record police activity on the job but alter the way in which the police work.

Question 5

The Media ‘packages and sells’ Crime

Answer 5

Media creates ‘moral panics’:
Over exaggeration by society to a perceived problem, usually driven by the media.
The media identifies a group as a threat to societal values (folk devils), media presents a negative stereotype and exaggerates the scale, this usually leads to crack downs on the group although it may lead to a self fulfilling prophecy that amplifies the problem.

Cohen- mods and rockers.
Leads to a deviance amplification spiral by making it seem as it the problem was getting out of hand.