Media and Crime

• The Media Distorting the Reality of Crime

  • News is manufactured - Young
  • A distorted picture of crime from news / newspapers compared to official stats:
  • more violent and sexual crime
  • older and more middle class victims / criminals than those in the CJS - Age fallacy, Felson
  • Exaggerated police success in cleaning Up cases
  • Exaggerated the ris of victimisation, especially those towards women.
  • Seen as a series of separate events
  • Overplay extraordinary crimes - Felson, dramatic fallacy.
• Fictional representation

  Surette

  • Opposite to official stats - law of opposite
  • Few property crime
  • Killing due to greed / calculated
  • Crimes are by psychopathic strangers
  • Villains are higher status, middle aged white males
  • Cops get their man
• Stories are selected based on ‘news values’

  Young

  • news is manufactured

  News values:

  • Immediacy
  • Dramatisation - action and excitement
  • Personalisation - human interest stories
  • Higher status person and celebrities
  • Simplification - eliminating shades of grey
  • Novelty of unexpectedness - new angle
  • Risk - Victim-centred stories about vulnerability
  • Violence - Visible and spectacular acts
• The media causes crime

  • Creates labels leading to stereotypes
  • Romanticises crime
  • Glamours crime
  • Desensitised crime
  • Deviance amplified
  • Imitation
  • Relative deprivation
  • Consumption - adverts, strain theory
  • Portraying police as incompetent
  • Arousals - viewing violence
• Media creates fear of crime

  • Exaggerates that amount of violent and unusual crime
  • Exaggerate risk of certain groups - young, women and old people
  • Distorting the public impression of crime and an unrealistic fear of crime.

  Gerbner et al

  • Heavy users of television (4 hours a day) held higher levels of fear of crime.

  Sparks

  • ‘Media effects’ research often ignores the meaning that viewers give to media violence

  Left Realists

  • fear is understandable
• Media aids relative deprivation

  Left realists

  • Mass media helps to increase the sense of relative deprivation

  Lea and Young

  • Media has disseminated a standardised image of lifestyle
  • Poorest groups have media access, images of a materialistic ‘good life’.
• Media Creates a Moral Panic

  • Exaggerated response to social problems or issues - Knife Crime

  Cohen

  • Mods and Rockers , Folk devils, deviancy amplification, symbolism lead to exaggeration and prediction

  Hall et al

  • Black muggers
• Rise of Cyber Crime

  Wall - Identifies 4 types of cyber crime

  • Cyber trespass - hacking
  • Cyber deception - identity theft
  • Cyber pornography - porn involving minors
  • Cyber violence - psychological harm

  Hard for the police due to the scale of the internet and limited police resources.