7.1 Media Representations of Crime

Cards (17)

  • How does the law of opposites cause moral panics?
    People think that rapists are strangers when actually, they are more likely to be someone you know
  • What is an example of 'The law of opposites'?
    Property crime is under-represented while violence, drugs & sex crimes are over represented
  • What did Surette say about 'The law of opposites'?

    Fictional representations are the opposite of official crime statistics & very similar to news coverage
  • How many crime thrillers did Mandel estimate were sold between 1940s-1980s?

    Over 10 billion
  • What representation of crime as well as the news is important?
    Fictional representation of crime are important sources of our knowledge of crime
  • How did the Madeleine McCann case reach news values?
    Violent
    Panic after the event
    Young girl
    Long-running investigation
  • How did the Jimmy Saville case reach news values?
    He was famous
    Sexual violence towards women & girls
    A lot of people came forwards (large scale)
  • What are examples of news values? (4)
    High status
    Violence
    Immediacy (breaking news)
    Dramatisation
  • News Values
    Criteria journalists use to decide whether a story is newsworthy
  • Why did the focus move away from murder?
    Due to the abolition of the death penalty
  • How did types of crime coverage change between the 60s & 90s? (Schlesinger & Tumber)

    60s- Focus on murder & petty crime
    90s- Focus on drugs, child abuse, terrorism, mugging
  • What is one distorted image of victimisation?
    Media exaggerate the risk of victimisation, especially to women, white people & high status individuals
  • What is one distorted image of police success?
    Media coverage exaggerates police success & they want to be presented in a good light
  • What is one distorted image of types of crime? (Ditton & Duffy)

    46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes, yet these made up only 3% of all crimes recorded by the police
  • What are the 2 sources of crime statistics?
    Police recorded statistics
    Crime survey for England & Wales (CSEW)
  • What does the media show?
    A distorted image of crime
  • What percentage of news space do British newspapers devote to crime? (Williams & Dickinson)

    They devote 30% to crime