Media and Crime

Question 1

What type of crime do the media over-represent?

Answer 1

Violent crime.

Question 2

Who do the media show as victims of crime?

Answer 2

Elderly - in reality, they are the least likely to be attacked.

Question 3

Who do the media represent as offenders?

Answer 3

Male (in line with OCS), but also m/c and of high status (diff to OCS).

Question 4

What do the media present in a positive light?

Answer 4

CPS.

Question 5

Why are crime programmes similar to the news?

Answer 5

Focuses on murder, violent robbery ans sex attacks. However, it uses dramatised reconstructions.

Question 6

What have recent infotainment shows featured?

Answer 6

Young, non-white, underclass offenders. For example, Police, Camera, Action and Car Wars uses CCTV footage, portraying crime as an everyday and routine event.

Question 7

How is crime news a social construct?

Answer 7

It is the outcome of a social process in which some stories are selcted as newsworthy and others are rejected. News is not out there to be discovered, it is manufactured by the journalists, editors, etc.

Question 8

How does the media set an agenda?

Answer 8

Refers to the media’s influence over the issues that people think and talk about. As the media dedicate so much time and space to crime, they clearly put crime on the agenda.

Question 9

What are news values?

Answer 9

The criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into the newspaper or news programme.

Question 10

What are included in new values?

Answer 10

1. Immediacy - live coverage.
2. Dramatisation - action and excitement.
3. Personalisation - human interest stories about individuals.
4. Simplification - of the story.
5. Novelty and unexpectedness - a news angle.
6. Risk - victim-centred stories.
7. Violence.

Question 11

Why do violent crime make it into the news?

Answer 11

They are part of news values. The police are the main source of crime for journalists. So the police are primiary definers - they define what counts as crime, what counts as justice.

Question 12

What does media follow according to Surette?

Answer 12

The law of opposities - opposite of OCS and are similar to factual news coverage of crime. Focuses on murder and other violent crimes as a result of greed and calculation (most homicides are a result of domestic disputes and brawls). Sex crimes are shown as committed by pschopathic strangers (in reality most sex crime victims know the attacker). The police clear up rate is high and they are presented in a positve light.

Question 13

How can the media cause crime?

Answer 13

Media can affect our attitudes, values and behaviour. The uneducated and lower classes are particularly suspectible. Rap music, violent films and console games - being blamed for encouraging violence.

Question 14

In what ways, can the media cause crime?

Answer 14

1. Intimidation - providing deviant role models resulting in copy-cat behaviour.
2. Desenstation - through repeated viewing of violence and it begins to fell normal.
3. Transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques.
4. By glamorising offenders.
5. By portraying the police as imcompetent at their job.
6. By stimilating desire for material goos, though advertsing unaffordable consumer goods.
7. As a target for crime, e.g. theft of mobile phones, TVs.
8. Arousal - e.g. through viewing violent or sexual imagery.

Question 15

What is deviancy amplification?

Answer 15

Process through which the media create crime through the way in which they present certain events and groups in society as a threat to social order.

Question 16

What is a moral panic?

Answer 16

An exaggerated over-reaction by society to an issue presented as a threat to society.

Question 17

What is the process to create a moral panic?

Answer 17

1. Exaggerate an event and create folk devils.
2. Demonise the group - present as negative.
3. Enagage in symbloisation - clothing, etc.
4. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
5. Commit more criminal activity - deviancy amplification.
6. Media report events.
7. Causes moral panic - moral entrepenuers demand action.
8. Police targeting and labelling.

Question 18

Why are moral panics outdated according to McRobbie and Thornton?

Answer 18

1. Frequency - too often, not noteworthy.
2. Context - before moral panics would scapegoat a group and create folk devils. Today there is no single response - diff viewpoints and values.
3. Reflexivity - many groups try to create them for their own benefit. The media are unaware and do not want to pursue a moral panic uncritically.
4. Difficulty - less likely to start in society because it is less clear about what is considered to be bad. Society is fragmented and culturally pluaralisitc.
5. Rebound - people may be wary to start moral panic as it can rebound. Politicians who make comments about family values or drugs can find their private lives scrutinised - Gove.

Question 19

How does the media create fear of crime according to Schlesinger and Tumber?

Answer 19

Found correlation between edia consumption and a fear of crime. Tabloid readers + heavy users of TV - more likely to fear becoming victims of crime. The people may watch a lot of TV an fear crime so stay inside. They may react differently to violence in films and news. This undermines theories that claim the media can affect attiudes + behaviour.

Question 20

How does the media create a fear of cyber crime?

Answer 20

1. Cyber trespass - hacking, sabotage such as spreading viruses.
2. Cyber deception and theft - identity theft, phishing (obtaining bank details online through deception) and illegal downloads.
3. Cyber porn - child porn.
4. Cyber violence - online bullying.

Question 21

Why is cyber violence difficult to detect?

Answer 21

The huge scale of the internet, its globalised nature and limited police resources.