7.1 Media Representations of Crime

• 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