Can media cause crime?

How does magic bullet theory argue that media causes crime?

It can desensitise people to crime via overexposure to criminal content. Said content can simultaneously arouse viewers and encourage imitation of deviant role models who transmit criminal knowledge and stimulate desires (merton’s strain theory).

How does the media inaccurately portray certain aspects of crime?

It paints the police as idiotic, making people think that they would not be caught. It also overexaggerates the good and bad aspects of crime, the latter of which being called a moral panic.

How do Schramm et al evaluate magic bullet theory?

They observed most children were neither benefitted nor harmed by TV exposure

Why does Livingstone believe that our society fixates so much on the media’s influence over children?

Western society wants to keep childhood as an uncontaminated, innocent and private period

What is magic bullet and decoding theory?

MAGIC BULLET: people see things in the media and immediately want to imitate it

DECODING: People process media in different ways and have independent thought.

What did Gerbner et al observe in people who watched Tv for over 4 hours a day and how can we evaluate this?

They were more anxious about crime. However, it could be argued that they were previously agoraphobic, causing them to watch more TV, and so their fear of crime is unrelated to media consumption.

Why does left realist Young think that the media causes crime?

By increasing a sense of relative deprivation, triggering Merton’s strain theory

What did Hayward and Young point to to show that crime has been commodified in our society?

The fashion industry’s romanticisation of drug usage via “heroin chic”

What is the specific term for the commodification of graffiti in guerrilla marketing?

Brandalism

Summarise Bandura’s bobo doll experiment

Children who witnessed authority figures beat up a bobo doll were likely to replicate the same behaviour.

What did Cohen observe about the Mods V. Rockers subculture clash?

The media’s response silenced the underwhelming reality of the situation and created folk devils out of the 2 subcultures and generated a moral panic.

What is the deviance amplification spiral according to Cohen?

1. Public concern is aroused, increasing police presence around the folk devils leading to more arrests (even if no crime is committed)

2. Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs in the demonised group and so crime actually begins to occur, making the exaggerated media valid

3. Deviance and crime increase as a result, generating public concern, return to step one.

What key concept does Wilkins add to the deviance amplification spiral?

The idea of tolerance. He believes that crime is a social construct and therefore that deviant groups become defined as criminal and alienated from society (e.g. transgender people)

Why do McRobbie and Thornton not care for the idea of moral panics?

They argue that today’s media is so sensationalised that moral panics have no real impact on the public anymore and that less things are considered deviant, making it harder for the deviance amplification spiral to happen.