Topic 7 - Crime And The Media

Question 2

How did Ditton and Duffy find that the media over represent violent and sexual crime ?

Answer 2

Ditton and Duffy found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes , yet these made up only 3% of all crimes recorded by the police

Question 3

How did Marsh find that the media over represent violent and sexual crimes ?

Answer 3

Marsh found when studying in America that violent crimes was 36 times more likely to be reported compared to property crime

Question 4

What are the 6 ways the media give a distorted view of crime ?

Answer 4

1.the media over represent violent and sexual crimes
2.the media portray criminals and victims as older and more middle class than those typically found in the criminal justice system
3.media coverage exaggerates police success in clearing up cases
4.the media exaggerate the risk of victimisation especially to women , white people and higher status individuals
5.crime is reported as a series of separate events without structure and without examining underlying causes
6.the media overplays extraordinary crimes and underplays ordinary crimes

Question 5

Why does media coverage exaggerate the police’s success in clearing up cases ?

Answer 5

-this is partly because the police are a major source of crime stories and want to present themselves in a good light
-and partly because the media over represent violent crime , which has a higher clean up rate than property crime

Question 6

What did Schlesinger and Tumber find about changes in the type of coverage of crime by the media ?

Answer 6

-Schlesinger and Tumber found that in the 1960s the focus had been on murders and petty crimes
-but by the 1990s murder and petty crimes were of less interest to the media
-this change came about because of the abolition of the death penalty for modern and partly because rising crime rates meant that the crime has to be “special” to attract coverage
-by the 1990s ,reporting had widened to include drugs , child abuse , terrorism and mugging

Question 8

Why can crime shown in the media be thought of as a social construction ?

Answer 8

News stories are the outcome of a social process in which some potential stories are selected while others are rejected
-cohen and young argue that news is not discovered but manufactured

Question 9

What are news values ?

Answer 9

News values are the criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into the newspaper or news bulletin
If a crime story can be told in terms of some of these criteria then it has a better chance of making the news

Question 10

What are the 8 key news values which influence the selection of crime stories ?

Answer 10

1.immediacy - breaking news
2.dramatisation - action and excitement
3.personalisation- human interest stories about individuals
4.higher status - persons and celebrities
5.simplification - eliminating shades of grey
6.novelty or unexpectedness
7.risk - victim centred stories about vulnerability and fear
8.violence - especially visible and spectacular acts

Question 11

Where else do we get our images of crime from as well as the media ?

Answer 11

We also get our images of crime from fictional representations such as the TV , Cinema and novels

Question 12

What does Surette call fictional representations of crime , criminals and victims and what do they mean by this ?

Answer 12

-Fictional representations of crime , criminals and victims follow what surette calls the law of opposites , they are the opposite of official statistics - and similar to news coverage
-property crime is under represented , while violence , drugs and sex crimes are over represented
-fictional sex crimes are committed by psychopathic strangers , not acquaintances
-fictional villains tend to be higher status , middle aged white males
-fictional cops usually get their man

Question 13

What are the 8 ways which the media might be said to be a cause of crime and deviance ?

Answer 13

1.imitation - by providing deviant role models , resulting in copycat behaviour
2.arousal -eg through viewing violent or sexual imagery
3.desensitisation-eg through repeated viewings of violence
4.by transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques
5.as a target for crime - eg theft of tvs
6.by simulating desires for unaffordable goods eg through advertising
7.by portraying the police as incompetent
8.by glamourising offending

Question 14

Evaluation of media as a cause of crime - what did Schramm et al find about children watching tv ?

Answer 14

Schramm et al explored the effects of children watching Tv , they found ;
For some children , under some conditions , some television is harmful . For some children under the same conditions it may be beneficial and for most children under most conditions , most television is probably neither particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial

Question 15

How does research by Gerbner et al show that there is a link between media use and fear of crime ?

Answer 15

-research evidence supports the view that there is a link between media use and the fear of crime
-for example , gerbner et al found that heavy users of television (over 4 hours a day) had higher levels of fear of crime

Question 16

Evaluation of the view that there is a link between media use and the fear of crime ?

Answer 16

The existence of such correlations doesn’t prove that media causes fear
For example , it may be that those who are already afraid of going out at night watch more TV just because they stay in more

Question 17

How do left realists such as Lea and Young argue that the mass media helps to increase the sense of relative deprivation and therefore increase crime Also link to Merton ?

Answer 17

-in todays society where even the poorest groups have media access , the media present everyone with images of a materialistic lifestyle of fun , leisure and consumer goods as the norm to which they should conform
-the result is to stimulate the sense of relative deprivation and social exclusion felt by marginalised groups who cannot afford these goods
-as Merton argues this pressure to conform to the norm can cause deviant behaviour when the opportunity to achieve by legitimate means is blocked
-in this instance , the media are instrumental in setting the norm and thus promoting crime

Question 18

What do cultural criminologists argue about media and crime ?

Answer 18

-cultural criminologists argue that the media Turn crime itself into the commodity that people desire
-rather than simply producing crime in their audiences , the media encourages individuals to consume crime , in the form of images of crime

Question 19

How do Fenwick and Hayward see crime is becoming a style to be consumed ?

Answer 19

Fenwick and Hayward put it , that crime is packaged and marketed to young people as romantic , exciting , cool , fashionable and a cultural symbol

Question 20

What is a moral panic ?

Answer 20

A moral panic is an exaggerated over reaction by society to a perceived problem - usually driven or inspired by the media

Question 21

How can labelling be seen as a media cause of crime ?

Answer 21

Labelling may lead to the self fulfilling prophecy which then leads to a moral panic where the crime becomes more serious

Question 22

What are the 3 stages of a moral panic ?

Answer 22

1.the media identify a group as a folk devil and a threat to societal values
2.the media present the group as negative and exaggerate the scale of the problem
3.moral entrepreneurs, editors , politicians and other respectable people condemn the group and their behaviour
This usually leads to a crackdown on the group which often causes a self fulfilling prophecy that amplifies the problem creating a deviance amplification spiral

Question 23

Overview of the most influential study of moral panics and the role of the media in Cohens study of Folk Devils and moral panics ?

Answer 23

-Cohen examines the media’s response to disturbances between 2 groups of largely working class teenagers , the mods and rockers , at English seaside resorts From 1964 to 1966 and the way in which this created a moral panic
-mods wore smart Dress and rode scooters
-rockers wore leather jackets and rode motorbikes
-the initial confrontations started on a cold ,wet Easter weekend with a few scuffles , stone throwing , windows being broken and some beach huts getting wrecked
-however although this disorder was relatively minor , the media over reacted

Question 24

What are the 3 elements that cohen believes in his analogy of disaster in his study of the mods and rockers ?

Answer 24

-exaggeration and distortion - the media exaggerated the numbers involved and the extent of the violence and damage and distorted the picture through dramatic reporting and sensational headlines
-prediction - the media regularly assumed and predicted further conflict and violence would result
-symbolisation - the symbols of the mods and rockers - their clothes , bikes and scooters , hair styles , music etc were all negatively labelled and associated with deviance

Question 25

Why did the media’s portrayal of deviance by the mods and rockers lead to the deviance amplification spiral ?

Answer 25

-cohen argues that the media’s portrayal of events produced a deviance amplification spiral by making it seem as though the problem was spreading and getting out of Control -this led to calls for an increased control response from the police and courts -this produced further marginalisation and stigmatisation of the mods and rockers as deviants and less tolerance of them and an upwards spiral

Question 26

What does Cohen argue that the moral panic of the mods and rockers are the result of in terms of the wider context ?

Answer 26

-cohen argues that moral panics often occur at times of social change , reflecting the anxieties many people feel when accepted values seem to be undermined -he argues that the moral panic was a result of a boundary crisis , where there was uncertainty about where the boundary lay between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the time

Question 27

What did Neo Marxist Hall et al believe was the purpose of the moral panic about mugging in the 1970s ?

Answer 27

-Hall et al adopted a Neo Marxist approach that locates the role of moral panics in the context of capitalism -they argue that the moral panic over mugging served to distract the attention away from the crisis of capitalism

Question 28

What are criticisms of the idea of moral panics ?

Answer 28

-it assumes that the societal reaction is disproportionate over reaction - but who is to decide what is a proportionate reaction and what is a panicky one - this relates to the left realist view that peoples fear of crime is rational -what turns the amplifier on and off - why are the media able to amplify some problems into panic but not others ? -late modernity - do todays media audiences , who are accustomed to shock , horror stories really react with panic to media exaggerations

Question 29

Criticisms of idea of moral panics - how do late modernity theorists McRobbie and Thornton criticise the idea of moral panics ?

Answer 29

-McRobbie and Thornton argue that moral panics are now routine and so have less impact -also in late modern society there is little consensus about what is deviant -lifestyle choices which were condemned off such as single motherhood are no longer universally regarded as deviant and so it is harder for the media to create panics about them

Question 30

What are the 4 categories of cyber crime that Wall identifies ?

Answer 30

-cyber trespass -cyber deception and theft -cyber pornography -cyber violence

Question 31

Wall types of cyber crime - cyber trespass ?

Answer 31

Cyber trespass - crossing boundaries into others cyber property ,it includes hacking and sabotage such as spreading viruses

Question 32

Wall types of cyber crime - cyber deception and theft ?

Answer 32

Cyber deception and theft - including identity theft , phishing (obtaining identity or bank account details by deception ) and violation of intellectual property rights eg illegal downloading and file sharing

Question 33

Wall types of cyber crime - cyber pornography ?

Answer 33

Cyber pornography - including porn involving minors and opportunities for children to access porn on the net

Question 34

Wall types of cyber crime - cyber violence ?

Answer 34

Cyber violence - doing psychological harm or inciting physical harm . Cyber violence ignores cyber stalking eg sending unwanted , threatening or offensive emails and hate crimes against minority guys as well as bullying by text

Question 35

What is a problem with cyber crime - global cyber crime ?

Answer 35

Global cyber crime - policing cyber crime is difficult because of the sheer scale of the internet and the limited resources of the police , and also because of its globalised nature , which poses problems such as in which country should someone be prosecuted for an internet offence Police culture also gives cyber crime a low Priority because it is seen as lacking the excitement of more conventional policing