Media

• Media portrayal of crime

  Over-represent violent & sexual crime

  Exaggerated police success

  Exaggerate the risk of victimisation

  Reported as a series of separate events without structure or analysing underlying causes

  Overplay extraordinary crimes

  Dictates trends in crime reporting
• Schlesinger & Tumber

  In the 1960s the focus was on murders and petty crime. But by 1990s these were of less interest. Perhaps due to abolition of death penalty and rising crime rates. Meant coverage had to be interesting.
• Soothill & Walby

  Newspaper reporting of rape cases increased from under 1/4 of all cases in 1951 to over 1/3 in 1985. Focus on finding rapist.
• Surette

  Law of opposites:

  Opposition between what the media portrays and what is true - property crime is underrepresented whilst violence, drugs and sex-crimes are over-represnted. Real homicides mainly results from brawls and domestic disputes whilst the media portrays them as calculated.
• Cohen & Young

  Key news values influencing the selection of crime stories:

  Immediacy

  Dramatisation

  Personalisation

  Higher status

  Simplification

  Novelty of unexpectedness

  Risk

  Violence
• Media as a cause of crime 


  Copycatting

  Transmission of criminal behaviour

  Arousal

  Glamorising crime

  Desensitisation
• Bandura, Ross & Ross

  Transmission of aggression.
• Merton


  Adverts show the cultural goals of society which not everyone has the legitimate means of achieving.
• Lea & Young 


  Advertising makes people more aware of their own deprivation.
• Cohen

  Folk devils and moral panics:

  Media emphasised the incident, leading to a moral panic.

  Media predicting deviance attracted deviants.
• Becker


  Labelled by media (to gain more stories) -> self fulfilling prophecy.
• Hall


  Media representation of mugging to distract from capitalist crisis.
• Jewkes

  Internet creates opportunities to create both conventional crimes and crime using new tools.
• Wall


  Four categories of cybercrime:

  Cyber-trespass

  Cyber-deception and theft

  Cyber-pornography

  Cyber-violence
• Gerbner et al


  Found that heavy users of tv (4+ hours a day) had higher levels of fear of crime.
• Schlesinger & Tumber


  Found a correlation between media consumption and fear of crime.
• Schramm et al


  Whether or not the effect of TV is harmful or not is dependent on the experiences, background and personality of the child.
• Livingstone

  Media is used as a scapegoat for wider social issues.