The Media Flashcards
(11 cards)
New values
Crime and deviance make up a large proportion of news coverage as it is more interesting. The media give a distorted view of crime compared with official statistics. They over represent violent crimes and exaggerate police success. They over play ordinary crimes and this is called dramatic fallacy. This means that the news is a social construct rather than a factual depiction
Fictional representations of crime
Fictional representations of crime on tv and in novels are also important sources of our knowledge of crime. This is a big business as over 40 years 10 billion thrillers were sold despite it only being 20% of all movies. The fictional media also follows the law of opposites as they are opposite to the statistics but similar to the news
Evaluation of fictional representations of crime
More recently there have been changes in reality shows featuring young, non-white, underclass offenders which highlights the brutality and corruption of the police force
The media, relative deprivation, and crime
Left realists Lea and young argue that the media increases relative deprivation among marginalised groups. Today even the poorest people have media access where they are presented with materialistic messages. This causes them to commit crimes to afford these things
Evaluation of the media, relative deprivation, and crime
This links to mertons strain theory where people accept the cultural goal but use illegitimate means to achieve it
The media creates moral panics
The media exaggerate the amount of violent crime and the risks of certain groups becoming victims. This causes crime and deviance as it labelles a deviant act as a crime which the media over exaggerates, this leads to the public becoming worried and blaming a scapegoat. The police then clamp down on their specific group of people causing them to do it more
Evaluation of the media creates moral panics
Those who are afraid stay in more and consume more media images as a result, undermining the view of a casual link
Moral panic’s continued
Cohens study of mods and rockers demonstrates how the media creates a moral panic. In the early stages many people didn’t associate themselves with either group. After a few scuffles the media exeaggerated and distorted this which sensationalisation. The media then predicated that more of this would happen causing more people to join in. Then the symbol of mods and rockers were negatively labelled as deviant
Evaluation of moral panics continued
Cohen fails to explain e by the media are able to amplify some problems but not others or why moral panics come to an end rather than continuing indefinitely
New communication technology increases the opportunities for more crime and deviance in society
Cyber crime is computer mediated activities that are either illegal or illicit. The internet creates opportunities to commit both conventional crimes and new crimes using new tools. There are four types of cybercrime: cyber trespass (hacking), cyber deception (identity theft), cyber pornography, and cyber violence (text bullying)
Evaluation of cyber communication causes crime and deviance
Policing cyber crime is difficult because of the sheer scale of the internet and because of its globalised natures poses problems of jurisdiction
