The mass media and crime

Things the mass media does

- Stereotype criminals- em, w,c, young
- Stereotyping victims- white, m/c, old

Deviance amplification

The media focuses on newsworthy stories- exaggerate and sensationalise.
Makes the situation worse than it actually is.
Leads to a moral panic.
Mods and rockers, myth of the black mugger, knife crime.

Deviance Amplification Spiral Theory: Stan Cohen

Crime/ deviant act is committed -> causes labelling -> deviance amplification -> media sensationalize -> causes moral panic -> crime/act is committed even more.

e.g.., Notting Hill hippies

Application to Mods and Rockers

Mods and Rockers had a fight in Clacton-on-sea -> labelled as violent and gang members -> police acted on it -> media made it a front page headline -> people became fearful -> fought again.

Media arrived a day late and asked leading questions- no other news to report on.

AO2- Hall: myth of the black mugger

Winter of discontent.
Capitalism began to fail- strikes from refuse workers and grave diggers.
Wanted to turn the light away from the failures of capitalism (crisis of hegemony) so played on the muggings taking place to create moral panic.
Criminalising black people- affecting future gens e.g., stop and search 7x more likely

AO2- Young: Notting Hill Hippies

Smoked weed casually- seen as deviant, this was persecuted.
Doubled down on their identity- retreated from society.
Grew hair long and weed smoking became a key part of their identity

AO2- King

In the US, the overall likelihood of a white person being a victim more generally of violent crime is down 22% from what it was 10 years ago, yet in 2013 the 'knockout game'- random black-on-white assaults became the dominant storyline in US media

How can this be used to explain the media's role in crime?

1/3 black US men will end up in prison

AO3- is Cohen outdated?

In today's society peoples identities are very diverse.
Unlikely to be aligned with one social group.
Society is more fragmented- live in a very multicultural society.
Very white subcultures- not reflecting 21st century.
Harder to detect differences.
Deviance is more relative.

AO3: McRobbie and Thornton

The media have moved on from creating moral panics.
We are the media of today.

What types of crimes are more likely to be featured in the news?

30% of the Sun stories concerned crime-> right wing, tabloid.
5% of the Guardian concerned crime -.> left wing, broadsheet

Tabloid- Sun, Express, Mirror
Broadsheet- Time, Guardian, Telegraph

Focus on crime- more likely to be in areas where crime is.

Greer and Reiner

More crime in tabloids than broadsheet.
Because of the w/c, younger audience.
High profile crime e.g., murder, stabbings- presenting sensationalized crime

Newburn

Coverage can be misleading because:

Disproportionately feature higher status and older offenders

Public see high status individuals as important/ more newspapers are sold.
Older offenders- makes a letter story, need more protection/vulnerable- easier to sell a paper

Exaggerate the proportion of crimes that are cleared by the police

Not all crimes are reported, not all crimes are recorded.
Tries to present a high clear up rate for police.

Exaggerate the risk of being a victim of crimes especially for white and upper class backgrounds

Most crime takes place in less affluent areas, however they fill newspapers in rich areas as it 'could happen to them'

Tend to present crimes as a series of individual incidents and have little coverage on the patterns

They ignore patterns and trends- it's less shocking/blinds individuals/consumers from seeing structural patterns in crime

AO3- Lewis Edwards

Ex police officer, exploiting position to ask 10-16 year old children for explicit pictures on Snapchat

The Pluralists- Jewkes

Impact on globalisation on media pluralism- there is no longer a dominant ideology.
The media no longer represents the political cultures of the owners.
Just focus on circulation- fight for consumers.
Consumer choice over what we choose to consume.
It is not structural stories but consumption that leads to news.

The Sun- 3m readers (2010), 1.4m (2019)
Telegraph- 700,000 (2010), 300,000 (2019)

AO3- criticism

Traditional media is not doing well in modern day.
Sinclair News Group (US)- own local media outlets, publish the same exact message on all channels with actors- choice is not clear.
Murdock family- own Fox news, The Sun, The Times, Sky- one family own a large share of broadcasting rights in the US

How does the media distort the truth?

AO1

Gatekeepers

The editors that decide what to cover and how to present it e.g., the Murdock family

Agenda setters

Focusing on some items in the news and excluding others so public see a particular issue as a problem.
e.g., train drivers & strikes, myth of the black mugger

Propoganda

information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

Greer and Reiner

There has been a long history of 'respectable fears' (concerns of 'respectable' people) about the media causing crime and deviance. They identify several ways in which the media might do this:

1. Labelling, moral entrepreneurship and deviancy amplification

The media can promote certain crimes through exaggeration and sensationalising, distorting the truth

2. Motives for crime

Media presents a consumerist culture (bulimic society) investigating relativity (throwing up raised expectations.

3. Knowledge and learning of criminal techniques

Criminals can learn where to commit crime.
They can learn how to do it, through the media.
e.g., case of James Bulger

4. New means of committing crime

Easier communication has led to transnational crime- cyber crimes, phising

5. The reductions of social controls

Social media has highlighted flaws in policing e.g., George Floyd- meaning there has been distrust in the police.
e.g., Sarah Everard, Stephen Lawrence
Mail said 'let them sue us if were wrong but they are murderers'

6. Providing targets for crime

Internet/devices people carry with them. A lot of money in goods e.g., phones, laptops.

AO2- Bandura Bobo Doll experiments

72 children, three groups.
They would copy behaviour of the adults that they saw.
Linked to James Bulger case.
Children can learn aggression from the media/ has real life consequences

AO2- James Bulger

Watched Chucky and copied the behaviour.

AO3- desensitization

Less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of cruelty or suffering by overexposure to such images.

AO2- example

The terminator films
1984, 1991, 2003
All three films have similar levels of violence, ratings went from 18 to 15 to 12.
Violence is normalized- less problematic

AO3- is the effect of the media relevant in today's society?

Can view crimes that happen abroad- learn.
Difference in laws from century to century.
Different ways to commit crime, life in communication has led to easier trafficking.
Communicate with criminals- plan events through social media, social networking- role of Whatsapp in London Riots.
Cyber bullying- 14 year old committed suicide as a result
Radicalization- Aqsa Mahmood

AO2- cyber crimes

Terrorist websites and networking, which involve recruitment, illegal acquisition of weaponry and planning of attacks

AO3

2015- major concerns about the way ISIS had seized large parts of Syria and Iraq using social media like Youtube, Instagram and Tmblr to conduct high tech media jihad to advertise its message globally.

Libyan rebels during the Arab Spring, contacted NATO via Twitter over where/when/how to attack Colonel Gadah's force.

AO2- Tinder Swindler

Shimon Hayut impersonated the son of a diamond tycoon of the Leviev family and took on the name.
Conned millions out of the women he would date.

AO2- WikiLeaks

Facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information through its website founded by Julian Assange in 2006.
2010- classified military video posted, showing US helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and a number of Iraqi civillians.
Arrested for espionage

AO3- evaluation (the media)

The media may have sped the process of crimes happening more frequently- crimes have always happened.
We are the ones who consume the media- pluralist Jewkes- we want sensationalisation, we want moral panics.
Crimes still happen without media attention.

AO3- Philo and Miller

Audiences are not passive but active with their engagement in the media (2007)
Audiences are aware when something is turning into a moral panic