CRIME, MEDIA AND REPRESENTATION

• WHAT IS THE MEDIA?

  • When we talk of the media and crime we refer to the news and coverage of crime.
  • BUT! The face of the media has evolved over time and so too has our consumption:

  1830s - 1920s Sound Media - 1930s Visual Media - 1980 New media
• Why Study Crime and Media?

  • Surette (2011) refers to the relationship crime and media as a ‘forced marriage’.
  • What we see in the news, films, TV series and other digital media influence how we see both criminal justice and those within the system.
  • The media’s influence on our perception of crime is not the only reason to consider crime and media; its impact on criminal justice policy is central to this topic (Surette, 2011:2)
• Why Study Crime and Media?

  • Consider examples of Criminal Justice Policy rooted in real life cases i.e. Megan’s Law and Amber Alerts.
  • Joel Best (1999) Random Violence: The creation of crime categories in the news, an incident is transformed into an instance of something i.e. something broader than an isolated ‘incident’ (see Moral Panics later).
• SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OVERVIEW

  • Social knowledge acquired from: personal experiences, significant others, social groups/ institutions and media.
  • Social Construction consists of our ‘experienced’ and ‘symbolic’ realities (Surette, 2011).
• MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

  Media representations influence how impressions of certain groups and individuals are generated.They reflect and reproduce identities of class, ‘race’, gender etc. Create/ extend popular assumptions about crime.- New stories often distort/ exaggerate reality. They can create unrealistic levels of fear of crime and lead to calls for greater intervention.
• HOW CRIME BECOMES NEWS

  • commercial constraints on journalists.
  • Appeal of official sources.
  • News values.
• JOURNALISTS: COMMERCIAL CONSTRAINTS

  • Newspapers experiencing decline in circulation.
  • Rise of the internet.
  • Pressure to produce news cheaply.
  • increase in ‘soft news’ stories - requiring little investigation (McChesney, 1999)
  • Stories with an obvious hook i.e. knife crime.
• SOURCES OF CRIME NEWS STORIES

  • Few stories uncovered by journalists. Main source - Criminal Justice Agencies/press agencies
  • Journalists investigative tactics
  • TV news even less likely to involve journalistic enterprise; regurgitated information from other sources. Problems with objectivity? (Cheit 2003:616)
  • Utilisation of ‘Newsbeats’ or ‘Beats’ (Weaver and Wilhoit 1991:69) Information from key public buildings/officials or specific categories (Lee Becker et al, 2000)
• JEWKES (2015)

  Threshold – important and/or dramatic?

  Predictability – ‘once the media expect something to happen, it will’ (p.51)

  Simplification – pacify audience rather than provoke critique

  Individualism – personal context rather than the wider issue

  Risk – heighten fear of crime

  Sex – overpoting of crime of a sexual nature

  Celebrity – public interest guaranteed

  Proximity – relevance

  Violence or conflict – shocking and graphic, but within limits

  Visual spectacle – use of images

  Conservative Ideology – breach of social norms by ‘others’

  Children – as victims and offenders
• Newsworthiness: Ideal Victims

  • Not all view crime news selection is a transparent process subject to discrete criteria.
  • Katz (1987): stories are newsworthy when they allow for rehearsal of moral values,collective identity and social values.
  • Crime news is news because it causes us to ‘react’.
  • Incidents that cause an outpouring of grief, shock and anger make ideal stories: see childvictims, violence and terrorism.
• CONCEPTS OF MEDIA COVERAGE OF CRIME - 4 KEY AREAS:

  • Moral Panics
  • Cautionary Tales
  • Crime Legends?
  • Cultural Trauma
• MORAL PANICS

  • Condemn wrongful behaviour.
  • Attribute responsibility to a (usually male) perpetrator.
  • Marginalise behaviour of the perpetrator.
  • Emphasise the need for state intervention (Cohen, 1972)Stages of a moral panic - summary

  1. Exaggeration and distortion: numbers, damage caused, violence.
  2. Prediction: incites fear that further conflict and violence is on the cards.
  3. Symbolisation: symbols of particular groups are then negatively associated with deviance.
• CAUTIONARY TALES

  • Prescribe behaviour
  • Attribute responsibility to a (usually female) victim.
  • Emphasise the need for self-regulation.
  • The moralising discourse is risk and precaution (Moore 2009)
• CRIME LEGENDS

  • Best and Gerald (1985) ‘Razor Blade in the Apple.’
  • Note similarities with Urban Legends; spread by word of mouth/today’s cyberspace.(Donovan, 2004).
  • Differs to Moral Panics; informal and timeless, communally created.
  • Differs from cautionary tales as never gains credence in official news.
  • Core features: common victims, perpetrators and settings. Crimes of violent natures.
• CULTURAL TRAUMA

  • ‘Occurs when an event is so significant that it irrevocably changes a group’s identity and causes a profound rupture to the social order.’ (Moore, 2014)
  • See Alexander, Jeffery et al (2004) Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity
  • Cultural trauma not a natural response but a distinct domestic response (Smelser, 2004)
  • Cultural trauma stories divide good and evil, ‘them and us’. There is no ambiguity.
• CRIME NEWS EFFECTS

  • As stated we receive most of our information on crime from media.
  • This depiction of crime informs perceptions. 

  3 KEY AREAS TO DISCUSS

  1. Government policy/ legislation
  2. Public attitudes
  3. Diffuse
• GOVERNMENT POLICY

  • James Bulger 1993: Policy on CCTV and age of criminal responsibility
  • Uncle Toms Cabin (USA) (Surette 2010:2-3) – Slave Laws mid 19th Century
  • More recently: Revenge Porn (UK) and Cyberbullying (Audrie’s Law – California)
• PUBLIC ATTITUDES

  • We recall crime news as it is negative/has personal dimension
  • Heavy consumption of crime news link with punitive attitudes (see 9/11) (Freid, 2005)
  • Crime news causes public to believe the police need to be more effective.
  • Increase in public fear (Lowry, Nio and Leitner, 2003)
  • News Trigger factors: Personal, graphic, need for police, harsher sentences
• DIFFUSE

  • Idea that the media is not the sole reason for our impressions.
  • One contributing factor.
  • Crime news may agree with long-held beliefs WE have already.
  • One aspect of our ‘Collective Cultural Experience’ (Garland 2001:147)
  • ‘Uses and gratifications’ research suggests that we seek out what we are already interested in