10.2.4

Media & Crime

Test yourself

News Values

A large amount of news coverage is dedicated to crime and deviance, however the media offers us a distorted view of crime.

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Distorting crime

  • A large amount of news coverage is dedicated to crime and deviance, however the media offers us a distorted view of crime:
    • It over represents violent and sexual crime.
    • It over exaggerates police success.
    • It over exaggerates the intelligence of offenders.
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Cohen and Young

  • Cohen and Young claim that the news is manufactured and therefore is not a reliable source when shaping our views of crime.
  • They claim that the news is a social construct as journalists will carefully select their news stories based on the following criteria, known as news values.
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News values

  1. Immediacy:
    • It is seen as ‘breaking news’ and therefore attractive.
  2. Dramatisation:
    • It is exciting and potentially dangerous – usually violent.
  3. Personalisation:
    • It is easy to relate to e.g. it generates human interest.
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News values cont.

  1. High-status victims or offenders:
    • E.g. celebrities etc. 
  2. Simplification:
    • It is easy to understand.
  3. Novelty:
    • Is it unique?    

The Influence of Media on Crime

It is argued that the media can influence crime to occur through the following factors.

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Imitation and arousal

  • Imitation:
    • Encouraging ‘copycat’ behaviour. 
  • Arousal:
    • Excitement caused by the media to commit crime e.g. murders or sexual assault.
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Desensitisation and transmission

  • Desensitisation:
    • As the media is full of shocking images, people begin to see brutality and violence as normal. 
  • Transmitting criminal techniques:
    • Exposing how people committed the crime.
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Consumerism

  • By promoting the desire for consumerist items:
    • Often too expensive to buy on an average income by glamorising offending.

Moral Panic

Cohen argues a moral panic can occur when the media generate an over-reaction within the public to a specific perceived problem.

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Aims of moral panics

  • Moral panics usually aim to do the following: 
    • Identify a group as a threat to societal values; known as ‘folk devils’. 
    • To give folk devils increased exposure and exaggerate their level of deviance.
    • To encourage moral entrepreneurs from all areas of society to openly condemn their behaviour in the media such as politicians, police officers, judges and celebrities, all for their own benefit.
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Mods and rockers

  • Cohen’s study focussed on the conflict between the ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ in the 1960’s as an example of how influential a moral panic can be on the public’s perception of crime.
  • Initially, the mods and rockers were two groups of young people that co-existed within the 1960’s.
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‘Day of Terror’

  • Cohen notes that a clear distinction was made between the groups in the media in 1964 when a minor ‘scuffle’ was widely reported in the national media.
  • Rather than reporting this as a scuffle, headlines instead read ‘Day of Terror’.
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Criminalisation

  • The moral panic on the mods and rockers began to spiral out of control as public fear increased, the police felt under more pressure to act.
  • A crackdown on both groups took place in which both were ‘criminalised’ by society which only led to further marginalisation.
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Media and crime

  • This can be linked to the following approaches:
    • The hypodermic syringe approach.
      • (Supported by studies such as Bandura et al.)
    • Catharsis.
      • (Supported by studies such as Fesbach and Sanger.)
    • Sensitisation.
      • (Supported by studies such as Young.)

Jump to other topics

1Theory & Methods

2Education with Methods in Context

3Option 1: Culture & Identity

4Option 1: Families & Households

5Option 1: Health

6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare

7Option 2: Beliefs in Society

8Option 2: Global Development

9Option 2: The Media

10Crime & Deviance

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