Topic 7- Crime And Deviance Flashcards
How have media changed their focus on crime?
In the 1960s - focused on murders and petty crime.
The increased crime rate and shift in reporting of crime means crime had to special to attract the media. They starting to only cover drug crime, football hooliganism and terrorism.
Soothill and walby- the media used labels to suggest rape attacks were done by psychopathic strangers but in most cases the victim knew the perpetrator.
How is news a social construct?
Young and cohen- news is not discovered it is manufactured.
The construction of news is based on news value, factors affecting news value are:
• immediacy- breaking news
• dramatisation- action
• personalisation- stories about ppl
• higher status- famous ppl
• simplification- explaining things
• novelty or unexpectedness- angles
• risk
• violence
What is the relationship between the media and moral panics?
They amplify crime through the way they label it. The media identify the group, label them negatively and condemn the group.
This creates deviance amplification spiral.
Explain the medias approach to the mods and rockers
Cohen- studied medias response to disturbance between the two groups of w/c teens. The media produced an inventory of what happened:
1) exaggeration and distortions- dramatic headlines exaggerated numbers involved
2) prediction- assumed that more conflict would happen
3) symbolism- the attached clothes to the mods and rockers, connecting other groups to the trouble.
What was the wider context of the mods and rockers?
Cohen- post war british society, the younger generation challenged the older generation. Cohen argues that moral panics happen during periods of societal change, due to a boundary crisis where people didnt know the line between acceptable and unacceptable.
Functionalists- moral panics are the responce to anomie, media creates a collective consciousness and reasserts social control when values are threatened
Neo marxists- moral panics are rooted into capitalism, used to distract people away from the problems of capitalism, hall muggings
What are criticisms of the moral panic?
1) assumes societal reaction is an over reaction
2) mcbrobbie and thornton- argue that in late modernity, have a little consensus on what is deviant
Do media present a distorted picture of crime generally?
Ericson et al- study of toronto found that 45%-71% of quality press and radio news was about various forms of deviance and its control.
Williams and dickinson- found british news papers devote 30% of their space to crime.
Dutton and duffy- over representation of violent and sexual crimes
Felson- age fallacy- portrays victims as older and m/c
Exaggerates police success
Exaggerates risk of victimisation
Present crime as a series of separate ways
Media over plays extraordinary crimes- felson dramatic fallacy, crimes we are let on to solve - is the ingenuity fallacy
Does media representation increase crime?
Gerbner- found people who watched over 4 hours of television a day had a greater fear of becoming a victim
Shlesinger ans tumber- found w correlation between media consumption and fear of crime.
However, ignores what meanings people attach to certain media violence, may give different meanings to violence in a game.
How does media cause crime?
• imitation- providing role models
• arousal- viewing violent or sexual
• desensitisation
• transmission of knowledge
• stimulating desires- advertising
• glamourising offending
• portraying police as incompetent
Explain media and relative deprivation?
Media increases relative deprivation
Explain cultural criminology
Hayward and young- media turn crime into a commodity that people desire.
Fenwick and Hayward- crime is a style to be consumed
Explain the fictional representation of crime
Surette- the media represents crime which is actually opposite of official crime statistics
Explain the impact of the new media
Moral panic around cyber crime
Wall has identified 4 types of cyber crime:
1) cyber deception and theft-
2) cyber- porn-
3) cyber- trespass-
4) cyber- violence-
