Flashcards
Crime and Deviance, Topic 7: Crime and the Media
Cards in this deck (10)
- 1How does the media/news distort the image of crime?Over representation of violent and sexual crime.
Media coverage exaggerates police success.
Media exaggerate the risk of victimisation.
Crime is reported as a series of separate events, with no report of the underlying causes.
The media overplays extraordinary crimes.
Media portray criminals and victims as older and more middle class. - 2News values and crime coverageNews is a social construction
It is the outcome of a process, where some stories are rejected.News values: the criteria by which some stories are deemed worthy.
-Immediacy (breaking news)
-Dramatisation (action/excitement)
-Higher status (celebrities)
-Risk (victim centred stories)
-Violence - 3Fictional representations of crimeSURETTE: The law of opposites.
The fictional representations of crime are opposite to the real statistics.
Property crime is under represented, while violence, drugs and sexual crimes are over represented.
Crimes are committed by psychopathic strangers, not individuals known to the victim - 4The media as a cause of crime: Ways the media cause crime and deviance.IMITATION: providing deviant role models
DESENSITISATION: through repeated viewing of violence
TRANSMITTING KNOWLEDGE OF CRIMINAL TECHNIQUES
STIMULATING DESIRE FOR AFFORDABLE GOODS
GLAMOURISING OFFENDING. - 5The media and fear of crime.Media exaggerate the amount of violent and unusual crime.
Exaggerate the risk of victimisation for groups such as the elderly
GERBNER: Heavy users of television had a greater fear of crime. - 6Media and relative deprivation and crimeIncreases the sense of relative deprivation eg through advertising
^Left Realist view.
even the poorest groups have media access - feel they need to conform to the lifestyle the media promotes. - 7Cultural criminology, the media and crimeThe media turn crime itself into a commodity people want
Encourage them to consume images of crime
Media saturated society
Blurring between the image and the reality of crime - e.g TV shows that use real police footage.
Commodification of crime - eg in rap music the image of criminality is combined with consumerist success. - 8Moral panicsCohens mods and rockers
Two groups, opposing ideals
Clashed at Clacton in the 1960s - minor fights
However the media exaggerated and distorted it producing a deviance amplification spiral - made it seem the problem was getting out of hand, so there was greater crackdown and then greater marginalisation as a result.
The media are crucial in creating a moral panic - 9Wider context of moral panics - when do they happen.Occur at times of social change, reflecting the anxieties of the public
Values seem to have been undermined
BOUNDARY CRISIS - uncertainty as to what is acceptable anymore. - 10Cyber crimeNew types of media are met with a moral panic
Internet has created a moral panic over cyber crime.
Global cyber-crime - difficult to police.
Cyber-trespass eg hacking
Cyber-violence eg stalking or harassment.
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- Flashcards on Crime and Deviance, Topic 7: Crime and the Media, created by Chloe Adams on 19/06/2017.
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- Chloe Adams
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