Crim 2295 chap 1-? (5 theoretical models)

market model

Stories become crime news based on
audience preference (i.e. market demand)
• No/little need for media regulation
• Focus is on profit

Public sphere/
Social responsibility model

Media should give the public what it
needs
• Media serve the interests of democracy
• Pedagogical function
• Watchdog function
• Code of ethics

Propaganda/ instrumental/
manipulative model

Content is determined by who owns the
media
• Content reflects and furthers the interests
of the powerful
Video: 5 filters
• Focus on street crime (not suite crime)
Video: Agenda-setting function
• Misrepresentations of marginalized
groups, including Indigenous peoples

Institutional/organizational
model

Routines of news production favour:
Certain stories
Certain sources
• Hierarchy of credibility
Primary definition
• Symbiotic relationship between media and
police
• Simplification, personalization, stereotypes

Cultural studies
perspective

Media constructs meaning
• Ideology and hegemony
Video: Stuart Hall – Race, Gender, Class in the
Media
• Focus on representation – how people are
portrayed and the impacts of that portrayal
• Encoding/decoding (next slide)
• Moral panics and folk devils

Encoding/decoding

En

• frameworks of knowledge
• relations of production
• technical infrastructure. Discourse/communication

De
frameworks of knowledge
• relations of production
• technical infrastructure

News values/
Newsworthiness
criteria