The media as a cause of crime

Question 1

List some of the numerous ways in which the media might possibly cause crime and deviance

Answer 1

1. Imitation (providing a role model)
2. Arousal
3. Desensitisation (through repeated viewings of violence)
4. Transmits knowledge of criminal techniques
5. Stimulates desires for unaffordabe goods
6. Portraying the police as incompetent
7. By glamourising offending

Question 2

Name some of the evidence which supports the view that there is a link between media use and fear of crime

Answer 2

• Gerbner et al: heavy users of television had higher levels of fear of crime
• Schlesinger and Tumbler: a 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 attack and mugging

Question 3

What is a criticism of some of these studies?

Answer 3

Greer and Reiner: This research ignores the meanings that viewers give to media violence

Question 4

What do Left Realists believe the link between relative deprivation, the media and crime is?

Answer 4

• Lee and Young:
  The mass media help to increase the sense of relative deprivation among poor and marginalised groups as…
• There is now a standardized image of lifestyle, culture and recreation
• Links in with Merton’s strain theory

Question 5

What does cultural criminology argue?

Answer 5

The media turns crime itself into the commodity that people desire. (The media encourages viewers to consume crime through the form of images of it)

Question 6

How do Hayward and Young (Cultural Criminologists) see late modern society?

Answer 6

They see it as a media-saturated society, where we are immersed in the ‘mediascape’ (an ever-expanding tangle of fluid digital images)

• There is a blurring between the image and the reality of crime
• Examples: police car cameras don’t just record police activity; they actually alter the way in which the police work, with US police forces for example using reality TV shows like Cops as promo videos

Question 7

How do Fenwick and Hayward describe the correlation between the media and the commodification of crime?

Answer 7

They describe crime and deviance as a style to be consumed

• Crime is packaged…. marketed to young people as romantic, cool, exciting
• Car adverts include scenes of joyriding
• Advertisers trade on images of the forbidden: Opium, Poison, Obsession…