Mass Media and Crime

Question 1

Crime and Fiction

Answer 1

Crim has been a central part of fiction with it being estimated 1/4 of novels and prime time TV can be categorised as crime based.
Surette used the law of opposties to describe crime in media fiction. It is distorted in a variety of ways.
- focus on calculated murder committed by strangers and it is the most frequent offence
- offenders tend to be mc in fiction and police have high clear up rates (not the case in reality)

Question 2

Crime and Reality TV

Answer 2

Television programmes have blurred the boundaries between reality and fiction. eg Crime Watch Reconstructions tend to have the same distorted view of crime that is offered in newspapers. However more recent programmes like traffic cops offer a more realistic account of crime. However editing techniques? Helpful in solving crimes?

Question 3

Crime and News

Answer 3

News offers us a distorted picture of crime in comparison to offical statistics. They tend to over represent violent and sexual crime. Duffy found 46% of coverage was of this type of crime although official statitics suggest it only accounted for 3% of recorded crime

Question 4

News Values

Answer 4

Criteria which journalists and editors use to judge to see if a story is newsworthy. The key ones are immediacy, drama, human interest, higher status, simplification, novelty and violence. Therefore news exaggerates certain types of crime

Question 5

News, Moral Panics and the Media

Answer 5

Media contributes to the social construction of crime as it creates a moral panic. Cohen mods and rockers, Moral Panic, identified folk devil, moral entrepreneurs, self fulfilling prophecy and deviancy amplification spiral

Question 5

Media effects of crime (5)

Answer 5

• imitation
• arousal
• desensitisation
• transmits knowledge of criminal techniques
• increases relative deprivation