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Sociology - Crime and Deviance > Topic 7 - Media and Crime > Flashcards

Topic 7 - Media and Crime Flashcards

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Sociology 101 flashcards
1
Q

What did SCHLESINGER and TURNER find

A
  • Crime reporting in the 1960s focused on murders and petty crime but reporting in the 1990s shifted in focus (due to media attraction)
  • Drug crime, football hooliganism, and terroism
  • “sex fiend” or “sex beast” (SOOTHILL and WALBY)
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2
Q

Social construction of news

A
  • YOUNG and COHEN
    1. Immediacy
    2. Dramatisation
    3. Personalisation
    4. Higher status
    5. Simplification
    6. Novelty or unexpectedness
    7. Risk
    8. Violence
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3
Q

Immediacy

A
  • Breaking news
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4
Q

Dramatisation

A
  • Action and excitement
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5
Q

Personalisation

A
  • Human interest stories about individuals
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6
Q

Higher status

A
  • Persons and celebrities
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7
Q

Simplification

A
  • Eliminating shades of grey
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8
Q

Novelty or unexpectedness

A
  • A new angle
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9
Q

Risk

A
  • Victim centered stories about vulnerability and fear
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10
Q

Violence

A
  • Especially visible and spectacular acts
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11
Q

What is crime

A
  • Abnormal
  • Newsworthy
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12
Q

Moral panic

A
  • An exaggerated over-reaction by society to a perceived problem, usually driven and inspired by the media, where the reaction enlarges the problem out of all proportion to its real seriousness
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13
Q

What are the three key elements within a moral panic

A
  • The media identify a group as folk devils
  • The group are represented in a negative stereotypical fashion
  • Moral entrepreneurs condemn the group and its behaviour
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14
Q

What do the factors of a moral panic lead to

A
  • A call for a crackdown on the group
  • BUT, this can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy that amplifies the problem that caused the problem in the first place
    = Deviancy amplification spiral
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15
Q

Mods and Rockers

A
  • COHEN “Folk Devils and Moral Panics”
  • COHEN examined the media’s response to disturbances between the groups of 2 w/c teenagers (Mods and Rockers) at English seaside between 1964-66
  • Inventory contained 3 elements:
    1. Exaggeration and distortion - “Day of Terror by Scooter Gangs” - dramatic headlineswould exaggerate the numbers involved and the nature/extent of the trouble
    2. Predication - There was an assumption that more conflict and violence would appear
    3. Symbolisation - The clothes of the mods and rockers were used as a symbol of their deviance and it allowed the media to connect other groups to the trouble = generalise about troubled and deviant youth
    = Deviancy amplification spiral
  • Media make it seem like a problem = produces further marginalisation of Mods and Rockers = increased deviance
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16
Q

The Wider Context (moral panics)

A
  • COHEN = change in post-war British society
  • This was a period in which the new found affluence, consumerism, and hendonism of the young seemingly challenged the values of the older generation who lived through the harships of the 1930’s and 40’s
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17
Q

What is the result of a moral panic according to COHEN

A
  • Boundary crisis = the uncertainty about where the boundary lay between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in a time of change. The Folk Devil created by the media symbolises and gives focus to popular anxieties about social disorder
18
Q

Moral panics from a FUNCTIONALIST perspective

A
  • Responding to the sense of anomie/normalness created by change
  • If the media create a sense of threat this raises the collective consciousness and reasserts social controls when values are threatened
19
Q

Moral panics from a NEO-MARXIST perspecitve

A
  • Located in the context of capitalism
  • For example, HALL in ethnicity the purpose of moral panic over mugging was to distract the attention away from the crisis of capitalism and to divide the working class on the grounds of race to avoid a challenge to authoritarian rule
20
Q

Moral panics that have emerged in recent years

A
  • Dangerous dogs
  • Single parents
  • Immigration
  • Binge drinking
21
Q

A03 Moral panics

A
  • Assumes the societal reaction is a disproportionate over-reaction, who is to decide what is a proportionate or a panicky reaction. LEFT REALISTS would argue fear of crime = rational
  • What turns the amplifier on and off? Why are the media able to amplify some problems into a panic but not others? Why do panics not go on indefinitely once they have started
  • Do todays media audience really react with panic to media exaggerations when they are accustmed to media “shock horror” stories
  • MCROBBIE and THORNTON argue in Late Modernity there is little consensus about what is deviant, lifestyle choices that were condemned 40 years ago may not be deviant now
22
Q

Do the media present a distorted picture of crime (statistics)

A
  • ERICSON ET AL study of Toronto found 45-71% of quality press and radio news were about various forms of deviance and its control
  • WILLIAMS and DICKINSON found that British newspapers devote up to 30% of their news space to crime
23
Q

How does the news reporting crime differ to the picture of crime painted by official statistics

A
  • Over-represent violent and sexual crimes
  • Portrat victims and criminals as older and middle class
  • Media coverage exaggerates police success
  • Media exaggerates the risk of victimisation
  • Crime is reported as a series of separate events
  • Media overplays extraordinary crimes
24
Q

Over-represent violent and sexual crimes (media)

A
  • DUTTON and DUFFY found 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes, yet they make up 3% of all crimes recorded
25
Q

Portrat victims and criminals as older and middle class (media)

A
  • Than those found in the criminal justice system, FELSON = age fallacy
26
Q

Media coverage exaggerates police success (media)

A
  • Partly because the police are the major source of crime stories and want to present themselves well and partly because medua report on violent crimes which has a higher clear up rate
27
Q

Media exaggerates risk of victimisation (media)

A

-Especially to women, white people, and higher status individuals

28
Q

Crime is reported as a series of separate events (media)

A
  • Without structure or without explaining underlying causes
29
Q

Media overplays extraordinary crimes (media)

A
  • And under play ordinary crimes, FELSON = dramatic fallacy
  • Images lead us to believe us to believe to commit crime and solve it you need to be daring and clever = inguenity fallacy
30
Q

Does the media representation incease the fear of crime

A
  • As the media exaggerates the amount of violent and unusual crime as well as exaggerating the risks to some groups that they are more likely to become victims of crime, there is concern that the media are distorting the public view = unrealistic fear of crime
31
Q

Evidence supporting the media representation incease the fear of crime

A
  • GERBNER = Found people who watched over 4 hours of television a day had a greater fear of becoming a victim of crime
  • SCHLESINGER and TURNER = Found a correlation between media consumption and fear of crime, tabloid readers and heavy users of TV expressed greater fears of becoming a victim of crimes such as mugging or assault
  • BUT, GREER and REINER argue too much media effects ignored the meanings that viewers give to violence, they may give very different meanings to violence in horror films, cartoons, and the news, to understanf the impact of media we must look at the meaning people give to what they see and read (INTERPRETIVIST)
32
Q

The media as a cause of crime

A
  • Imitation = Providing deviant role models “copycat”
  • Arousal = Viewing violent or sexual imagery
  • Desensitisation = Through the repeated viewing of violence
  • Transmission of knowledge = Criminal techniques
  • Stimulating desires = For unaffordable goods e.g., advertising
  • Glamourising offending = Subcultural role model
  • Portraying the police in incompetent
  • SCHRAMM said in relation to the effects of viewing on children “for some children, under some conditions, some television is harmful. For some children under the same conditions, it may be beneficial”
  • LIVINGSTONE makes the point that people continue to be pre-occupied with the effects of media on children because our desire as a society to regard childhood as a time of uncontamined innocence in the private sphere
33
Q

Media and relative deprivation as a cause of crime

A
  • Mass media help to increase the sense of relative deprvation (the feeling of being derived compared to others - among poor and marginalised social groups)
  • In today’s society, even the poorest groups have access to the media, they are presented with materialistic goods and lifestyle choices that are expected to be the social norm = stimulates sense of relative deprivation felt by marginalised groups
  • MERTON this pressure to conform to the norm can cause people to deviate as legitimate opportunities to these social norms are not available
  • Media set the norm = promote crime
34
Q

Cultural criminology, the media, and crime

A
  • Cultural criminologists like WAYWARD and YOUNG argue the media turn crime into a commodity that people desire = consume crime
  • Late modernity characterised by a media-saturated society, we are immersed in a “media scape” = blurring between image and reality of crime
  • Police camera’s don’t just record activity but become part of reality TV shows
35
Q

Media and the commodification of crime

A
  • Gangster rap and Hip Hop combine images of street criminality with images of consumerist success, stars also wear designer clothes, have jewellery, and have luxury cars
  • FENWICK and HAYWARD aruge crime becomes a style to be consumed “crime is packaged and marketed to young people as romantic, exciting, cool, and fashionable cultural symbol”
    It is also true of mainstream products:
  • Car ads have included riots, joyriding, suicide bombing, graffati
  • The fashion indistry uses images of deviance and images of the forbidden, e.g., FCUK
  • Some designer labels now become symbols of deviance, e.g., stone island
36
Q

Fictional representations of crime

A
  • MANDEL estimates from 1945-1984 over 10 billion crime thrillers were sold wordwide, 25% of prime time TV and 20% of films are crime related
  • SURETTE media fictional representations of crime actually follow what he describes as a “law of opposites” = they are opposite of the official statistics and are verysimilar to news coverage
  • Property crime is under-represented whilst drug and sex crimes are over-represented
  • Real life murders are generally the result of domestic disputes and fights fictional murders are generally the result of greed and calculation
  • Fictional villains tend to be high status m/c white men
  • The police usually “get their man”
37
Q

Recent trends in crime

A
  • New genre of relaity infotainment which shows a trend to young, non-white underclass offenders
  • Increasing tendency to show the police as corrupt and brutal
  • Victims have become more central and audiences are invited to identify with theory suffering
38
Q

The impact of new media - Global cyber crime

A
  • THOMAS cyber crime as computer mediated activities that are either illegal or considered as deviant, these activities are conducted through global electronic networks
39
Q

4 types of cyber crime WALL

A
  1. Cyber deception and theft - Including identity theft, phishing, and violation of intellectual property
  2. Cyber-pornogrpahy - Including porn involving minors and opportunities for children to access porn
  3. Cyber-trespass - Crossing boundaries into cyber property
  4. Cyber-violence - Psychological harm or inciting physical harm, cyber staling, hate crimes, and bullying
40
Q

Why is policing cyber crime difficult

A
  • Sheer scale and limited resourses of the police and also becaise of the globalised nature which poses the problems of whos responsibility
  • Police culture also sees cyber crime as low priority because it lacks the excitement of more conventional policing
41
Q

What does JEWKES argue

A
  • ICT permits routine serveillance through the use of CCTV, electronic databases, digital fingerprinting, and internet service providers who monitor internet traffic

Sociology - Crime and Deviance (8 decks)

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