(1) representation & reality

What did Geoffrey Pearson (1983) note about the interaction between the media’s and the public’s response to crime?

• the public are both fearful of & fascinated by crime

• media has sought to satisfy public’s apparently insatiable appetite for stories about crime since its inception in 18th-century news sheets

Which episode attracted an estimated 9.92 million viewers on its transmission?

final ep. of Serues 4 of BBC crime-drama ‘Line of Duty’

How many viewers did the final episode of Series 4 of the crime-drama ‘Line of Duty’ attract on its transmission?

9.92 million

How do sociologists argue that the media is more complex than simply acting as a mirror to society?

1. media coverage of crime = highly selective

   • not all crime reported

   • certain crimes given priority

   • variation between dif/ mediums eg. violent/sexual more heavily reported than white-collar/corporate crimes in tabloid papers

2. media offers particular ways to understand crimes it selects to report

   • Stuart Hall: “interpretative frameworks” = manners of understanding

   • can call attention to certain aspects of issue while obscuring others

   • use of language eg. rapists referred to as “beasts”/ “sex fiends” in tabloids, implying it’s the product of animalistic/ abnormal appetites

Who suggest that journalists’ decisions about what stories to report are dependent on “news values” (ie. their ideas about what makes something newsworthy)?

Galtung + Ruge (1970)

How do Galtung + Ruge (1970) define “news values”?

ideas about what makes something newsworthy

What does Reiner (2010) argue about which crimes journalists regard as newsworthy?

• deviance = essence of news because it contains certain elements:

  • immediacy

  • dramatisation

  • personalisation

  • titillation

  • novelty

• explains priority given to sexual/ violent crimes in tabloid newspapers + broadcast news

• leads to economic crimes etc. (generally committed by high-status/wealthy individuals or corporations) being “marked off from real crime”

• crimes of violence eg. homicide disproportionately reported in news compared to their incidence in official crime stat.s/ victim surveys

• property crime significantly under-reported considering such crimes constituted majority of police/victim survey responses

Who argues that deviance is the essence of news because it contains certain elements that journalists see as newsworthy, and which explain the focus given to sexual + violent crimes by tabloid newspapers + broadcast news?

• immediacy

• dramatisation

• personalisation

• titillation

• novelty

Reiner (2010)

What did Williams + Dickinson (1993) note about newspaper space + crime stories?

• on average 12.7% of newspaper space is devoted to crime stories

• HOWEVER the further down-market the newspaper, the greater the space devoted to crime + deviance

• eg. more crime in The Sun than The Guardian

Who found that on average 12.7% of newspaper space is devoted to crime stories, but the further down-market the newspaper, the more space is devoted to crime + deviance?

Williams + Dickinson (1993)

Who found that crime reporting was a major feature of broadcast news eg. 40% of news on BBC radio was focused on crime?

Cumberbatch et al. (1995)

What did Cumberbatch et al. (1995) find about crime reporting?

• major feature of broadcast news

• 40% of news on BBC radio was focused on crime

Who found that rape + sexual crime sometimes occupied up to 45% of newspaper coverage of crime?

Soothill + Walby (1991)

What did Soothill + Walby (1991) find about rape + sexual crime?

sometimes occupied up to 45% of newspaper coverage of crime

What is the sociological debate surrounding the forms of media used to convey crime?

• some argue the emergence of mobile digital forms of communication & the proliferation of internet sites that enable forms of “citizen journalism” (blogs, podcasts etc.) have democratised news production

• Jewkes (2015): most people continue to rely on traditional news media in relation to crime

Who analysed a random sample of 136 news articles about rape + sexual assault of girls/women by males?

Marhia (2008)

How did Marhia (2008) investigate press reporting of rape + sexual assault?

• analysed random sample of 136 2006 articles about rape + sexual assault of girls/women by males

• articles that appeared in UK national newspapers / on BBC Online news site

• forms construction of these offences as “an outdoor crime at the hands of a monstrous or bestial deviant stranger, who may be ‘foreign’ & uses extreme violence to overpower a victim” which is inconsistent with social research

• rape cases which led to conviction account for around half of reports on rape, but only around 6% of reported rapes result in conviction

• attacks by strangers account for around half of reports on rape, but only 8-17% of UK rapes are by strangers

• majority of rapes perpetrated by current/ former partner but these cases account for only 2% of press stories

• attacks against underage girls over-reported; attacks against adults under-reported

What did Marhia (2008) argue about the distorted representation of rape?

• public misconceptions

• affects willingness on victims to report rape

• affects conviction rates

Who estimates that 1 in 5 movies exclusively focus on a criminal theme?

Reiner

Reiner estimated that 1 in _ movies exclusively focus on a criminal theme?

5

What does Reiner argue about fictional narratives about crime?

• over-represent violence more disproportionately than news

• murder dramatised as result of greed/calculation rather than spontaneous/domestic disputes (as in reality)

• property crimes require degree of violence/tight planning, though in reality most are opportunistic & involve little physical harm

• last decade has seen trend towards criticism of police in contemporary fiction (eg. ‘Line of Duty’) ~ writers must prevent established genres from becoming “tired” & sanction to changing audience