Media and Crime

Media is so fascinated with crime because of the sensationalism of the context of the crime and the way that these real life situations can be stripped for comedic or entertaining purposes, Jefrey dahmer Netflix series.

  1. Media representation of crime versus official crime statistics

-over representation of violent and sexual crime - Ditton and Duffy (1983) 46% of media reports were of sexual or violent crime but these only account for 3% crimes recorded by the police. (crime statistics are a social construction, not all cases are reported, as a 15 yr olds death is not seen as a domestic abuse case but as assault from a weapon).

-(evaluation) Feminists would argue that the official crime statistics are skewed and inaccurate as most sexual assault cases aren’t reported out of fear, embarrassment, etc.

  1. Felson (1998) Age fallacy- media portray criminals as older and more middle class.

  2. Media exaggerates risk of crime 

Crime is reported as separate and unrelated with an examination of structure.

One way in which the media portray a distorted picture of crime to the public is through the fictional ways that crime is represented and underrepresentation of real life crimes and the most frequently committed crime like property crime.
Another way is through the glamorisation of crime through using this fictional representation of police always catching the perpetrator when in most cases they drop and are never picked up again, theft cases 

One way in which news values discourage the media from covering certain types of crime stories is through the novelty and unexpectedness of the stories that they include like the James Bulger case.

Another way is through the simplification of complex cases and the underlying societal implications some cases have, domestic abuse cases always over-simplify that the woman has been abused, but they never focus on the aftermath and the underlying reasons. 

Media as a cause of crime

-Influencing young kids through shooter games, gorey graphic images 

-Glorifies crime through movies (suicide squad)

-To gain material wealth, people may be influenced to follow certain paths to gain money illegitimately, scamming, media gives them a platform

-Spread disinformation to cause other people harm

-Gives people a platform 'deviance amplification’

-Social media allows people to spread personal information that can cause others to use to their advantage

-Densitizes people to crime.

Ways in which media can cause crime:

  • Imitation

  • Arousal

  • Desensitisation

  • Transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques 

  • A target for crime

  • Stimulating desires for unaffordable goods (strain theory)

  • Portrayal of police as incompetent

  • Glamourising offending

One way in which Cohen’s concept of media generates moral panic might be criticized is because of the assumption it makes about societal reactions and whether the reaction was proportionate but they can’t classify what is and what isn’t proportionate.