Crime and Media

Intro to Crime & Media

• Media-Saturated Society: Because most people have little direct contact with individuals whose lifestyles and values differ from their own, our knowledge of crime is heavily influenced and socially constructed by media representations.

• Examples of Mass Media: Newspapers, Social Media (e.g., Reddit, Twitter), and TV.

• Three Sociological Areas of Interest:

  1. The extent to which the media portrays an accurate picture of crime.

  2. The part that the media plays in creating crime.

  3. The way in which the media shapes our fear of crime.

Media Representations of Crime & Key Studies

• What kind of picture does the media paint of crime?

• Key Study: Williamson and Dickinson (1993)

• What contemporary entertainment trend reflects this?

• Social Construction: Sociologists argue that our knowledge of crime is socially constructed. The media presents a distorted picture regarding the amount of crime perpetrated, as well as the nature of criminals and their victims.

• Williamson and Dickinson (1993): Found that newspapers devote a massive proportion of their news space—up to 30%—strictly to crime coverage.

• Modern Trends: Crime streaming media has exploded, highlighted by "lots of crime programmes on Netflix, Prime, etc."

Richard Felson (1998) – Media Fallacies: Age & Drama

• Age Fallacy: The media portrays criminals and victims as being older than they typically are. Official statistics show that the majority of offenders and victims are actually very young.

• Dramatic Fallacy: The media heavily over-represents violent and sexual crimes, creating a fixation on extraordinary incidents.

• Marsh (1991): Discovered that violent crime was 36 times more likely to be reported in American news than property crime.

Richard Felson (1998) – Media Fallacies: Ingenuity & Victims

• Ingenuity Fallacy: The media exaggerates police prowess and success. It creates the illusion that police are highly clever and more likely to dedicate extensive resources to solving violent crimes than mundane property crimes.

• Victim Fallacy: The media exaggerates the risk of victimization, particularly distorting the real-world danger and level of risk posed to women and the elderly.

News Values and Crime Selection

• Manufactured News: News does not simply exist 'out there' waiting to be collected. The creation of news is the outcome of a social process where potential stories are selectively accepted or rejected. News is manufactured.

• Gatekeepers: Journalists and editors use specific filters to decide if a story is "newsworthy" enough to make it into newspapers or bulletins.

• News Values: These criteria (partially listed via Steve Chibnall on page 2) include: Immediacy, Dramatisation, Personalisation, Higher-status/celebrities, Simplification, Novelty, Risk, and Violence.

Steve Chibnall (1977) – News Values

• The "Abnormal" Appeal: By its abnormal nature, people find crime stories fascinating. The media includes them to increase reading/viewing figures.

• The 8 News Values Defined:Raymond Surette (1998) – Fictional Media

  • Immediacy: Current Event

  • Dramatisation: Action & Excitement

  • Personalisation: Human interest stories about individuals

  • Higher-status persons: Celebrities

  • Simplification: Easy to understand

  • Novelty: A new angle

  • Risk: Victim-centred stories about vulnerability & fear

  • Violence: Graphic & gruesome

Raymond Surette (1998) – Fictional Media

• Beyond the News: Our perceptions of crime are also shaped by what we see in fictional films and programmes.

• The Law of Opposites: Surette argues that fictional representations are very similar to news coverage because they construct a distorted picture of crime.

• Fictional media often follows the "law of opposites," showing a representation that completely stands at odds with and does not reflect official statistics.

Media Effects and Media Influence Models

• Susceptible Groups: There is concern over negative effects on the attitudes and behaviours of the young. Video games (e.g., Grand Theft Auto) face criticism for encouraging violence and criminality.

• Hypodermic Syringe Model: A simplistic view treating human beings as passive recipients of direct media brainwashing. (Note: Most studies, including Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment, show exposure to violence has at most a limited/small negative effect).

• Anthony Giddens: Argues people are active interpreters of media content; they evaluate media output rather than just accepting it, and can differentiate fiction from reality.

• Suggested Causes of Crime:

  • Glamorisation of crime.

  • Copy-cat incidents (e.g., steeling cars).

  • Arousal – stimulated by violent/sexual crimes.

Stanley Cohen (1972) – 'Mods and Rockers'

• Moral Panic: Media reporting exaggerates and distorts behavior, playing a large role in creating a public panic and producing a "crime wave".

• The Amplification Spiral Steps:

  1. Deviant Act takes place.

  2. Crime is defined by crime control agencies.

  3. Operation of news values leads to selective reporting.

  4. Crime as news: Selective, exaggerated portrayal of crime in the media.

  5. Deviancy amplification: Targeting by news, public concern, and control agencies on specific aspects of deviance.

  6. Moral Panic: Law and order campaigns, leading to less public tolerance and calls for crackdowns.

Sarah Thornton (1995) & Media Tools Against Crime

• Sarah Thornton (1995): Argues Cohen's theory is too simplistic. In modern society, some groups and sub-cultures will actively seek media attention and public notoriety to raise the profile of their cause (e.g., the Westboro Baptist Church).

• Media as a Tool to Combat Crime: The media isn't just a cause of crime; it is also a vital mechanism for public assistance and surveillance.

• Examples: TV shows and initiatives like Rogue Traders, Crimewatch, and Crimestoppers.

Media Distortions and the Fear of Crime

• Unrealistic Fear: The media amplifies the amount of violent and unusual crime, exaggerating the risks of victimization for specific groups (e.g., the young, women, and the elderly). This causes an unrealistic fear of crime.

• Schlesinger and Tumber (1992): Found a clear correlation between media consumption and fear of crime. Tabloid readers and heavy TV users expressed a significantly greater fear of becoming victims of physical attack and mugging.

• The Correlation Problem: Correlation does not prove causation. It could simply be that people who are already afraid of going out at night stay in more, and therefore happen to watch more television.

Yvonne Jewkes (2003) – Internet and Cyber-Crime

• Jewkes (2003): Notes that the growth of the internet has facilitated both 'conventional crimes' (e.g., fraud) and 'new crimes' (e.g., software piracy).

• The Four Types of Cyber-Crime:

  1. Cyber-trespass: Crossing boundaries into others' cyber property (e.g., hacking).

  2. Cyber-deception & theft: Deceiving others for gain (e.g., identity theft, phishing, illegal downloading).

  3. Cyber-pornography: Digital distribution of illicit material, including porn involving minors.

  4. Cyber-violence: Doing psychological harm or inciting physical harm (e.g., trolling).

Challenges of Policing the Internet & Future Developments

• Policing Obstacles: Law enforcement faces issues due to the sheer scale of the internet, the limited resources of the police, and its globalised nature, which creates severe problems of jurisdiction (e.g., deciding which country should prosecute an offense).

• Surveillance and Control: New Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provides the police and state with greater opportunities for surveillance and control, which can be viewed as both a good thing and a bad thing.

• Future Outlook: The handwritten conclusion notes that extensive internet and social media use is likely to cause ongoing problems. For instance, society may find that "front-line police officers are needed in offices combating cyber-crime instead of having a visible presence on the street."