Media Representation Of Crime

• •–The media over-represent violent and sexual crime – e.g Ditton and Duffy (1983) found 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes, yet these made up only 3% of crimes recorded by police.–The media portrays criminals and victims as older and more middle class than those typically found in the CJS – the ‘age fallacy’  (Felson).•
• Distorted Representation Of Crime

  • Media coverage exaggerates police success in clearing up crimes
  • Media exaggerate the risk of victimisation especially to women, white people and those of high status
  • Crime is reported as a series of separate events without underlying structural causes (e.g poverty)
  • The media overplay extraordinary crimes and underplays ordinary ones – the 'dramatic fallacy' (Felson)
• The police are a major source of crime stories and present themselves in a good light
• Violent crime (which the media focuses on) has higher clear up rates than property crime
• New Values And Crime Coverage


  •Stories are selected by the media on the basis of how ‘newsworthy’ they are.  The news is not simply neutral factual information, it is the outcome of social processes where some stories are selected and others rejected. As Stan Cohen and Jock Young (1973) note, the news is not discovered but manufactured.••‘News values’ help editors decide which stories will be most appealing to audiences. If a story meets some of these criteria, it has a better chance of making the news.
• News Values

  1.Immediacy – breaking news where cameras can be on the scene straight away2.Dramatisation – stories with action and excitement3.Personalisation – human interest stories about individuals4.Elite persons – such as celebrities, royals and those of high status5.Simplification – creating a simple narrative around a story6.Novelty – a story which is unexpected or new7.Risk – victim-centred stories about vulnerability and fear8.Violence – especially visible and spectacular acts
• Changes in media representation of crime

  • Focus in 1960s was on murders and petty crimes
  • By 1990s, crimes had to be more 'interesting' to make the news
  • Widened to drugs, child abuse, terrorism, football hooliganism and mugging
• Schlesinger and Tumber found changes in media representation of crime


  1994
• Soothill and Walby found changes in newspaper reporting of rape cases


  1991
• Newspaper reporting of rape cases increased from under a quarter of all cases in 1951 to over a third in 1985
• Language such as 'sex fiend' and 'beast' creates a picture of rapists as psychopathic strangers, when in most cases the perpetrator is known to the victim