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Sociology
Crime
7.1 Media Representations of Crime
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Created by
Megan Kelly
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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