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20 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Mass media and crime |
Williams and Dickinson: British newspapers devote up to 30% news space to crime |
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How the media distorts crime |
1. Ditton and Duffy (1983):Over representation of violent/ sexual crimes
- 46% of media reports were about violence/sexual crimes yet these only made up 3% of all crime (leads to fear) 2. Media coverage exaggerates police success - (perhaps soften the fear of crime) 3. Media exaggerate the risk of victimization 4. Media overplay extraordinary events - (e.g. graphic, horrific stories) |
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Shifts in media coverage of crime over time |
> Schlesinger and Tumber (1994): found changes in coverage over time
- 1960’s: focus on murders and petty crime - 1990’s: drugs, child abuse, hooliganism, muggings - Recent: pre-occupation with sex crime ( & terrorism) + may be due to abolishment of the death penalty, crimes had to be special to be of interest, raising awareness of human rights |
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Fictional crime
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> fictional representations of crime are important sources of our knowledge on crime - over 10 billion crime thrillers sold worldwide - 25% of prime time TV & 20% of films were crime related |
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Fictional representations of crime compared with reality |
> Surette (1998): Fictional representations follow the Law of opposites
-Property crime underrepresented,sexual/violent over represented -Real life homicides mainly result from brawls & domestic disputes: fictional ones due to greed, calculation -Fictional crimes committed bypsychopathic strangers: not acquaintances -Fictional villains higher status, middle aged white male -Fictional cops are usually successful × more recent trends: 'New reality' undercover shows often show young w/c offenders, new corruption of the police on victims × based on official stats: maybe MC men do commit crime but aren't caught |
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News values ( the media decides what stories to publish depending on certain factors) |
> Young (1973): News not discovered but manufactured to please audience > Part of this social construction is led by news values: -Immediacy -Dramatization -Personification -Higher status -Simplifications -Novelty -Risk -Violence
> Stories are more likely tobe read if they match these categories, known as profit motive |
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Media as a cause of crime |
> Natural born killers: a film about copy cat killers which resulted in copy cat killings in real life > other examples:
A02: - do we need to ban simple dramas and news too? - above examples are generally scapegoats for horrific incidents rather than actual causes |
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how might media cause crime and deviance ? |
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study on how the media is the cause of violence: Hypodermic syringe theory |
> media has a direct and powerful effect on the passive audience ( injected with a daily dose of images) - deterministic: audience may not be passive - people can be decoders and interpret violence differently |
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study on how the media is the cause of violence: Bandura experiment |
> experiment: adult beats the bobo doll and the child copies when left alone with it - Hawthorne effect: the child may have acted differently under surveillance - lab experiment: artificial nature can't translate directly to real life |
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conclusive arguments for media being the cause of violence |
> schramm: for some children, some TV is harmful but for most children, most TV is neither harmful or beneficial > Livingstone: people are still preoccupied with effects of media on children as they want to regard childhood as an age of innocence |
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problems with the idea that media causes violence (A02) |
× some naturally fascinated by violence + other crimes/ gravitate towards certain programs × it merely reflects their personality i.e. pre-disposition to violence)
× millions view violence (entertainment or news) and majority don't consider enacting what they see × more people are repulsed by violence and reject it are never tempted to enact it |
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Fear of crime |
> Gebner: heavy users of TV had higher levels of fear of crime
> Schlesinger and Tumber: Found correlation between media consumption and fear of crime e.g. muggings × Not cause and effect: e.g. individuals may already fear crime and the outside and therefore stay in and watch more TV which heightens fear > Terrorism and fear mongering from media/TV |
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Moral panics |
> Moral panic: the media can cause crime through labeling
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Contemporary examples of moral panics |
Youths and Hoodies: Fawbert
- 2008 hoodies: shopping centers ban hoodies- enters press - reality: drop in youth crime - fear of youths and outcry from public/police created - chief constable: longer sentencing for hoodies
Folk devils: groups or individuals who are the focus of moral panics |
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How a moral panic occurs |
1. Media identify group as folk devil/ threat tovalues 2.Media present the group negatively and exaggerate the problem 3.Moral entrepreneurs condemn the group/ behaviour( police, politicians, editors) 4.Crackdown on this group
5.Labelling leads to SFP and Deviancy amplification A02: selective reporting leads to more interest and morecrime being found |
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Main example of a moral panic - Cohen
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Was a demand for more police action = morereporting Polarized reaction occurred from the groupsthemselves = deviancy amplification > Found the press exaggerated theimpact |
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why do moral panics occur: Functionalism |
Cohen:occurs at times of social change (anomie)
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why do moral panics occur: Marxism |
> Profit motive on behalf of the press
(Neo-Marxist) Hall: Policing the crisis - blacks portrayed asmuggers in the media - Served to distract attention from the crisis ofcapitalism and were used as scape-goats for societal problems -media in conjunction with the elite create moral panics to perpetuate fear/maintain control over society - fear = demand for more policing = more control over w/c |
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criticisms of moral panic theory |
- doesn't discuss the initial cause for the events that take place (e.g. the fights in clacton) - Right realism: MPT assumes the reaction is disproportionate (maybe it isn't who decides that?) - why are the media able to amplify some events but not others ? - Postmodernist -outdated: hard to create panics as 1. little consensus about what is deviant 2. today's audience are accustomed to shock stories - no agreement on the cause: due to anomie or powerful groups trying to control others |