Media and Crime Lecture Review
Chapter 2 - Ongoing Debate About Media Influence
Stanley Cohen - Folk Devils and Moral Panics: This seminal work explores how media reactions to social issues, particularly youth subcultures like the Mods and Rockers, can escalate into "moral panics." Cohen's research demonstrates how media amplification can transform relatively minor incidents into significant social threats, creating "folk devils" out of specific groups.
Debunking the Assumptions of the Media Effects Tradition: This involves critiquing early, simplistic models of media influence (e.g., the "hypodermic needle" or "magic bullet" theory), which suggested media had uniform and direct effects on audiences. More nuanced understandings acknowledge audience agency, selective exposure, and the complex interplay of social, psychological, and cultural factors in shaping media reception and effects.
Is it possible for the media to be objective? Should they be?
Towards a New Synthesis: This proposes moving beyond simple-effects models and strict cultural studies approaches to integrate insights from various theoretical traditions, aiming for a more comprehensive understanding of media influence that considers both media power and audience interpretation.
What do we Mean by Media and Crime?:
Different Ways of Defining Crime: Crime can be defined legally (violations of state law), sociologically (acts that violate social norms), or from a human rights perspective (violations of fundamental rights). The chosen definition significantly impacts how crime is understood and reported.
Different Ways of Defining Media: Media encompasses diverse forms including traditional (print, broadcast) and digital platforms (internet, social media, podcasts, streaming). Each form has unique characteristics, reach, and methods of presenting information about crime. This includes: News media, Entertainment media, Infotainment.
Media has a symbolic relationship with corporations and politicians.
Framing Theory, Practice and Analysis: A Conceptual Approach: Framing refers to how news or information is presented, influencing public perception. Media "frames" certain aspects of a story, making them more salient and shaping how audiences interpret events, particularly regarding crime. Framing is a multifaceted way to make sense of a problem, influencing public perception by selecting, organizing, and presenting information which shapes audience's assumptions.
Media Formats: How events are packaged and given to us by media selection, organized, and presenting information that shapes the audience’s perception and assumptions. This includes communication format, frame, theme, and discourse.
Dominant Media Frames: Common, recurring patterns in how media portray crime (e.g., "individual pathology" where crime results from individual failings, "system failure" where crime is due to societal issues, or "moral decline" representing eroding values). This also includes frames like "juvenile super predators"—a group of individuals committing extreme crimes, as seen in cases like the Columbine shooting or the Central Park Five, which fueled a punitive approach in the 1990s.
Framing Devices: Specific journalistic techniques used to construct frames, such as headlines, choice of words, images, expert sources, and information placement.
The Problem Frame
This refers to a narrative structure that is specific to a time and place, often implying that something is undesirable, its parts are easily identified, and it can be changed or “fixed.” It often casts the government as the repair agent and can have real policy consequences, such as in cases involving missing children.
Frame Changing
This refers to how events are framed across different time periods (post, present, and future) and how these frames relate to communities and the people they affect, whether locally or nationally. It examines the initial level of community/individual impact.
Common Media Narratives
Specific recurring storylines in media include: Violent popular culture, Faculty Criminal Justice frame, Blocked opportunities frame, Social breakdown Frame, Violent media frame, Racist system frame.
Media Logic
Media Logic: Assumptions, patterns, and format of the way various media operate, which has infiltrated our lives and culture. Despite society generally being safer, media often promotes dangers, leading to increased fear.
Chapter 3 - Realism v Constructivism
Realism: This perspective posits that an objective reality exists independently of human thought and perception. In the context of media and crime, a realist view would suggest that crime rates and events are factual, measurable, and exist "out there" in the world, and that media's role is primarily to reflect this objective reality. Early, simplistic models of media influence, often criticized as "hypodermic needle" theories, align with a realist assumption that media messages are directly injected into a passive audience, having uniform and predictable effects because they are perceived as direct representations of an objective truth. A core realist assumption is that knowledge is derived from direct observation and that media, at its best, provides an unmediated window onto reality.
Constructivism: In contrast, constructivism argues that reality, particularly social reality, is not merely discovered but is actively created or "constructed" through social interaction, language, and cultural practices. In the context of media and crime, constructivism emphasizes that media does not just reflect crime but actively shapes our understanding of what constitutes "crime," who "criminals" are, and what the appropriate societal responses should be. This perspective highlights how media plays a significant role in the "social construction of reality" and "social construction of crime," by selecting, organizing, and presenting information in ways that frame public perception and influence societal norms. "Moral panics," for instance, are seen as socially constructed dangers where media amplification transforms relatively minor incidents into significant social threats, creating "folk devils" through collective interpretation rather than solely through objective fact. Symbolic Interactionism is closely linked to constructivism, focusing on how individuals create meaning through shared symbols and interpretations, which media profoundly influences.
Comparison and Contrast:
Nature of Reality: Realism asserts an objective reality existing independently of human perception, while constructivism emphasizes that social reality is actively shaped by human interpretation and social processes, with media being a primary actor in this construction.
Role of Media: From a realist standpoint, media ideally reflects a pre-existing reality; its influence is direct if it accurately conveys that reality or distorts it. In constructivism, media is an active participant in creating reality, influencing how phenomena like crime are defined, understood, and responded to, rather than merely reporting on them.
Audience Agency: Realism, especially in its simpler forms, often implies a more passive audience directly receiving media messages. Constructivism, however, acknowledges significant audience agency and the complex interplay of social, psychological, and cultural factors in interpreting and making sense of media messages, contributing to the co-construction of meaning.
Truth and Knowledge: For realists, truth corresponds to objective facts about the world. For constructivists, what is considered "true" about social phenomena like crime is a product of social consensus and dominant narrative
Crimes that Make it Into the News: This explores the selective nature of crime reporting, where certain crimes (often sensational, violent, or novel) are deemed "newsworthy" while others are ignored. This selectivity is influenced by various factors, including media priorities and societal values. Crime in the news often focuses on crazy, bizarre, and violent events, presenting a binary view of crime. It is often predictable, oversimplified, and receives "wall-to-wall" coverage, often with inaccurate representations of the criminal justice system. News organizations frequently utilize criminal justice agents—like law enforcement, prosecutors, and politicians—to reinforce the status quo and may focus on non-relevant cases in national news.
Media Frames and Newsworthiness: Media frames contribute to newsworthiness by highlighting elements that align with journalistic values. A frame emphasizing dramatic events or individual victims, for instance, makes a crime more likely to be reported.
Binary Oppositions: News often simplifies complex issues into opposing categories (e.g., good/evil, victim/offender, innocent/guilty). This simplification can distort reality and reinforce stereotypes.
News Values: Criteria journalists use to select and prioritize stories:
Predictability: Events that align with existing narratives or expectations.
Proximity: Events occurring geographically or culturally close to the audience.
Simplification: Stories that are easily understood and conveyed, even if they oversimplify complex issues.
Individualism: Focus on individual actors (perpetrators, victims, heroes) rather than broader structural or societal factors.
Primary Definers: Official sources (police, politicians, experts) whose perspectives disproportionately influence how crime is defined and framed in the media due to their perceived authority and access.
Trial by Media: This describes situations where intense media coverage of a criminal case significantly influences public opinion, potentially prejudicing the legal process and impacting the perceived guilt or innocence of the accused before a verdict. This typical information is often presented more as a spectacle than true information, as seen in cases like Casey Anthony, and figures like Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, vs. Bill O’Reilly exemplify this. Such coverage often focuses on street crimes, sex, and terrorism, and is critical of elements within the system—judges, attorneys, juries. This can lead to speculation of guilt and challenge a defendant's 6^{th} amendment right to a fair trial.
Chapter 7 - Moral Panics and Young People
Know the Parts of a Moral Panic (Use Lecture Definitions):
Predictable
Lying dormant
Tradition well-known evils
Transparent and opaque
Concern: A heightened sense of anxiety or fear about the behavior of a particular group or specific events.
Hostility: Increased antagonism towards the "folk devils" (the group identified as the source of the threat), often accompanied by calls for punitive measures.
Consensus: A widespread (though not necessarily universal) agreement among the public that the threat is real, serious, and warrants a strong response.
Disproportionality: The perceived threat is often exaggerated relative to the actual danger posed by the group or activity.
Volatility: Moral panics tend to be transient, flaring up and subsiding, though they may reappear later.
Social Control
Social control: The organized ways in which society responds to behavior and people it regards as deviant, problematic, worrying, threatening, troublesome, or undesirable in some way or another. This involves inducing control and punishment for violating social norms or legal norms, often accompanied by strong emotions. It classifies behavior and responds to it, focusing on who society deems outsiders.
Moral Panics – Detailed Definition
Moral Panic: A condition, episode, person, or group of persons emerges to become defined as a real threat to societal values and interests. They are facilitated by media and involve:
The emergence of a Folk Devil.
The involvement of Socially Accredited Experts.
Strategies for coping.
A focus on individual morals over structural issues.
The criminalization of targeted groups, often politically weak (e,g,, Mods/Rockers, single mothers, juveniles, devil worshipers, drug addicts).
Missing crime data that might contradict the panic.
Sensational headlines and images.
Claims making and constructing social problems.
Distorting reality, often leading to "tough on crime" rhetoric.
The recognition that social construction, moral panics, and social control are interlinked.
Youth as Nuisance: This highlights a common media frame where young people, particularly those from marginalized groups, are often portrayed as inherently problematic, unruly, or a source of social disorder, rather than individuals facing complex challenges.
Typifications and Particularism:
Typifications: Generalizations or stereotypes used to characterize specific groups, often simplifying complex social realities (e.g., "all teens are reckless").
Particularism: Focusing intensely on individual cases to exemplify a broader, often exaggerated, problem (e.g., one horrific youth crime used to represent an entire "generation of violent youth").
Words and Images: The specific language and visual media used in reporting significantly contribute to moral panics. Sensational headlines, loaded terms, and evocative or disturbing images can amplify fear and hostility towards designated "folk devils."
Moral Panics and Risks
This involves claims makers, who can be 'noisy or quiet,' generating anxiety, worry, and fear. It relates to risk management, where claims makers and criminal justice agents influence risk perception, and addresses the perception and acceptance of risk within society.
Moral Panics as a Social Construct
This perspective views moral panics as socially determined dangers, where deviance and social control test and reinforce moral boundaries.
Moral Panics and Street Violence: Media narratives often link moral panics to perceived increases in street violence, frequently exaggerating the extent and danger. This can lead to calls for more aggressive policing and punitive measures, especially in urban areas.
The Colour of Justice: This refers to how systemic racism and racial bias influence the criminal justice system. Moral panics, particularly those involving street violence or youth, often disproportionately target and criminalize racialized communities and individuals, reinforcing existing inequalities in policing, sentencing, and media representation.
Stigmatization and Youth Vulnerability: Moral panics can lead to the stigmatization of young people, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds. Media portrayals that create 'folk devils' out of youth subcultures or specific groups can make them more vulnerable to social exclusion, harsher legal responses, and a negative self-identity, impacting their life chances and well-being.
Grimes Reserve Reading - The Emergence of Three Strikes
The Emergence of Three Strikes: This refers to "three-strikes" laws, which emerged in the U.S. (e.g., California's 1994 law) mandating severe sentences (often life imprisonment) for offenders convicted of a third felony, regardless of its severity, if the first two were serious violent crimes. These laws arose from a climate of heightened public fear about crime and a "tough on crime" political agenda.
The Effects of Three Strikes: These laws led to increased incarceration rates, longer sentences, prison overcrowding, and disproportionate impacts on minority populations. Debates persist regarding their effectiveness in deterring crime versus their social and economic costs.
The Construction of a Moral Panic: The "three strikes" movement was largely a product of a moral panic surrounding crime, particularly violent crime. It tapped into public fears and anxieties about repeat offenders, leading to demands for extreme punitive measures.
The Construction of a Slogan: "Three strikes and you're out," borrowed from baseball, is a powerful, easily digestible slogan that simplified a complex policy into a memorable, emotionally resonant phrase, garnering widespread public support. This is part of how slogans are constructed, often involving several narratives, with advocates and critics shaping public opinion, influencing the trajectory of policies like the 'three strikes law'.
The Media and Criminal Justice: The media plays a crucial role in shaping public understanding of criminal justice issues. Its often-sensationalized portrayal of crime can create pressure for tougher laws and influence policy decisions, sometimes leading to reactive rather than evidence-based policies like "three strikes."
The Media and the Social Construction of Reality: This concept highlights how media actively shapes our understanding of the world, including what constitutes "crime" and "deviance," who "criminals" are, and what the appropriate societal responses should be. Media does not just reflect reality but helps to create it. This is closely connected to Symbolic Interactionism and the social construction process.
Folk Devil, Moral Entrepreneur:
Folk Devil: A group or individual defined by the media and society as a threat to societal values and interests, becoming the focus of a moral panic.
Moral Entrepreneur: An individual, group, or organization that takes the initiative to define an activity as a moral threat, lobby for rule creation, and raise public concern. They often use media to amplify their message.
The Media and Public Opinion on Crime: Media representations profoundly influence public fear of crime, perceived crime rates, and attitudes towards policing and punishment. Sensationalized reporting can lead to an inflated sense of crime risk and demand for stricter measures.
The Klaas Murder and the Unintentional Legacy: The 1993 abduction and murder of Polly Klaas was a highly publicized case that significantly fueled public support for California's "three strikes" law. It serves as a tragic example of how individual cases can galvanize public opinion and lead to policy changes, sometimes with unintended long-term consequences.
Cohen - Folk Devils and Moral Panics (Revisited)
Mods and Rockers: Cohen's seminal study analyzed the clashes between these two youth subcultures in 1960s Britain. The media's disproportionately sensational portrayal of these skirmishes depicted them as a major societal threat, thereby creating a moral panic.
The Transactional Approach to Deviance: This perspective, rooted in interactionist theories, suggests that deviance is not an inherent quality of an act but a social product arising from interactions between deviant actors, control agents (police, courts), and the media. It's a dynamic, negotiated process where labels are applied and internalized.
Definitional Questions about Deviance: This involves exploring how societies define what is considered "normal" versus "deviant," acknowledging that these definitions vary culturally, historically, and contextually. It challenges essentialist views of deviance, where deviance is seen as an intrinsic property.
Deviance and the Mass Media: The media plays a critical role in defining, amplifying, and responding to deviance, significantly shaping public perceptions and contributing to the social construction of various categories of deviance.
Additional Topics and Case Studies
"Satan Wants You" - Satanic Panic Documentary on Tubi for Free: This documentary explores the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s and 1990s, a moral panic fueled by media and allegations of ritual abuse, particularly in daycare centers.
Michelle Remembers – Book and its Influence: This controversial 1980 book claimed to detail repressed memories of satanic ritual abuse. Despite its lack of verifiable evidence, it significantly contributed to the spread of the Satanic Panic by popularizing the concept of ritual abuse and influencing public belief.
Daycare Scandal and Prosecution of Innocent People: Several high-profile cases, such as the McMartin preschool trial, involved accusations of satanic ritual abuse in daycare centers. These often resulted in lengthy, expensive trials and, in many instances, the conviction of innocent people based on flawed testimony and a climate of intense moral panic.
Daytime Talk Shows Participation: Talk shows played a role in amplifying the Satanic Panic and other moral panics by providing platforms for sensational stories, often featuring accusers, "experts," and "survivors" of alleged abuse, thereby legitimizing and spreading unsubstantiated claims to a wide audience.
Con Artists: Moral panics can be exploited by individuals who fabricate or exaggerate claims of abuse or danger for personal gain or attention, acting as "con artists" or "moral entrepreneurs" seeking to generate fear and influence public opinion.
Farhana - True Crime on Demand: This refers to the increasing popularity of true crime content across various digital platforms, where real criminal cases are adapted into documentaries, series, or podcasts, allowing consumers to access such content "on demand."
The Role of the Digital Detective: With the rise of true crime and digital platforms, amateur "digital detectives" (members of the public) often engage in online investigations, sharing theories, and sometimes attempting to solve cases. This can have both positive (uncovering new evidence) and negative (misinformation, harassment, interfering with official investigations, "trial by internet") implications. Example discussions of true crime research and uncovering corruption are explored in documentaries like 'The Keepers,' which investigated the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik.
True Crime Podcast: Dark Tourism and Narrative Transportation:
Dark Tourism: The phenomenon of visiting sites associated with death, tragedy, or significant suffering. In the context of true crime, this could involve visiting crime scenes or locations related to famous cases.
Narrative Transportation: The psychological process by which listeners or viewers become fully immersed in a story, feeling as though they are part of the narrative world. True crime podcasts use narrative techniques to achieve this, drawing listeners deep into the details and emotional impact of criminal events.