Media as a cause of crime

8 ways media causes crime

1. Imitation

2. Arousal

3. Desensitisation

4. Knowledge of criminal techniques

5. As a target for crime, e.g. TV theft

6. Relative deprivation, mainly through ads

7. Police portrayed as incompetent

8. Glamorisation of offending

Imitation

• Media provides deviant role models through violent films and video games, and influencers

  • E.g. Andrew Tate normalises trafficking women

Desensitisation — Colombine shooting

• Followed by other school shootings as they often happen in clusters

Schramm et al 1961

• TV under the same conditions can be harmful/neutral/beneficial for different kids

Livingstone 1996

• Society is preoccupied by the impact of media on children as wants to see childhood as a time of uncontaminated innnocence

Gerbner et al

• TV 4< h/day → increased fear of crim

Schlesinger nad Tumbner 1992

• Tabloid readers and heavy TV users have a greater fear of victimisation (physical attack, mugging)

Greer and Reiner 2012

• Studies on effect of media on cause/fear of crime ignore meanings

  • E.g. meanings given to violence/crime depends on if it’s a cartoon/news/horror film

Lea and Young — relative deprivation

• Mass media disseminated standardised materialistic image of lifestyle

  • Increases RD among W/C and unemployed that have access to media and thus accentuates social exclusion

Merton

• Media sets the norm → pressure to conform + blocked opportunities → deviant behaviour

Cultural criminology

• Media commodifies crime

  • Encourages its consumption

Young and Hayward 2012 late modern society

• Late modern society = media-saturated

  • Immersed in media-scale with digital images and blurring of images/reality

Young and Hayward 2012 media creating crime

• Its representation of crime thus creates it

  • E.g. gang assaults are staged and compiled for videos

  • E.g. police dash cams → reality TV shows/used as promo vids

Young and Hayward — commodification of crime

• Late modern society emphasises consumption, excitement and immediacy

  • Therefore the ‘thrills of crime’ are commodified and corporations and advertisers use these to sell crime to the youth

    • E.g. hiphop = street hustler criminality + consumerist success

Young and Hayward — 5 examples of how the media promotes crime

1. Car ads show delinquency

2. Fashion ads show images of the forbidden

3. Section 60 is named after stop and search powers

4. Graffiti often used in ads

5. Brands construct criminal IDs, like Stone Island

Fenwick and Haward 2000

• Crime is packaged and marketed to youth as romantic/exciting/cool/fashionable/cultural symbol