Media & 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.

• 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.

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.

4. High-status victims or offenders:

• E.g. celebrities etc.

  5. Simplification:

• It is easy to understand.

6. Novelty:

• Is it unique?

    

• Imitation:
  • Encouraging ‘copycat’ behaviour.

   

• Arousal:
  • Excitement caused by the media to commit crime e.g. murders or sexual assault.

• 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.

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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’.

• 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.

• 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.)