1. Media and crime
Part of the isa- thought control, is informative, is a distraction, includes alternative media like social media

2. Media representations of crime
Crime and deviance make up a large proportion of news coverage
Williams and Dickinson found british newspapers devote up to 30% of their news space to crime
While the news media show a keen interest in crime, they give a distorted image of crime, criminals and policing, especially when compared to the picture of crime gained from analysing official statistics
Do they do this to sell the newspaper? Eg to sell stories to that demographic

3. How the media present a distorted view of crime
1: the media over represent violent and sexual crimes
2: the media portray criminals and victims as older, more m/c than those that are typically found in the justice system
A far greater proportion of reports on crimes of this nature despite their more limiting occurrence
Most interesting, are sensational
Marsh: revealed studies of news reporting in America and found that a violent crime was 36x more timely to be reported than property crime
Feminism: the media is a patriarchal institution that controls womens fears
Felson calls this the ‘age fallacy’

4. Especially to women, white people and higher status individuals
3: media coverage exaggerates police success
4: the media exaggerates the risk of victimisation
This is partly because the police are a major source of crime stories and want to present themselves positively and partly because the media over represent violent crime which has a higher clear up rate than property crime
Especially to women, white people and higher status individuals
Eg women may fear being a victim of crime due to media representation of female victims

5. And without investigating the underlying cause
5: crime is reported as a series of separate events without structure
6: the media overplay extraordinary events
And without investigating the underlying cause
And underplay ordinary events
Felson calls this the ‘dramatic fallcy’
Media images also lead us to believe that to commit and to solve crime one needs to be daring and cleaver – ‘ingenuity fallacy’

6. Change has occurred in this type of coverage of crime by the news media
Schlesinger and tumber found that in the 60s the focus has been on murders and petty crime, however, during the 90s the focus on these crimes reduced for the following reasons:
As the abolition of the death penalty for murder, the crime rate was also rising so a crime needed to be ‘special’ to attract media coverage eg child abuse, terrorism, mugging
Soothill and walby: there is evidence of increasing preoccupation with sex crimes. They found that newspaper reporting of rape cases increased to over 1/3 in coverage of these cases also focused on identifying a ‘sex friend’ or ‘beast’. The resulting distorted picture of rape is one of many sexual attacks carried out by psychopathic strangers. While these do occur they are the exception rather than the rule- in most cases the perpetrator is known to the victim

7. News values and crime ocverage

8. The distorted picture of crime painted by the news media reflects the fact that the news is a social construction
The news does not just exist ‘out there’ waiting to be gathered in and written up by the journalist
Instead it is the outcome of asocial process in which some potential stories are selected and others rejected
Cohen and young argue that the news is not discovered but instead it is manufactured. A central aspect of the manufacture of news is the idea of news values. News values are criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into a newspaper or news bulletin. If a crime story can be told in terms of come of these criteria, it has a better chance of being included in the news- if it is unusual and extraordinary. This makes deviance newsworthy since it is abnormal behaviour

9. Cohen and youngs key news values in influencing a crime story
Immediacy: how recent it happened, breaking news, eg terrorist attacks
Dramatisation: action, excitement, shock
Personalisation: human interest stories about individuals eg maddalin maccan
Higher status persons and celebrities: the higher the status the better eg the kardashians
Simplification: eliminating confusion
Novelty and unexpectedness: a new angle, dumbing down crime
Risk: victim centred stories about vulnerability and fear
Violence: especially visible and spectacular events eg school shootings

10. Fictional representations of crime
Eg tv shows, movies etc

11. Are very similar to news coverage
Are very similar to news coverage. Property crime is underrepresented while violence, drugs and sex crimes are overrepresented
Fictional cops usually get their man
Increasing tendency to show police as corrupt and brutal and less successful
Fictional homicides usually product of greed and calculation whereas real life its usually due to brawls

12. Media as a cause of crime
The media is accused of negative influence throughout recent times, not a new phenomenon

13. Hypodermic syringe model
Argues that the media has a direct and immediate effect on its audience. This focuses on whether media portrayals of crime and deviance lifestyles lead viewers to commit crime themselves
The model treats the audience as if they are: passive, weak, inactive, a black piece of paper with no influences on them
Imitation: providing deviant role models, resulting in copycat behaviour eg joker-> us shooting
Arousal: through viewing violent or sexual imagery eg isis rape
Desensitisation: to cause someone to experience something, usually an emotion or a pain, less strongly than before, through repeated viewing of violence eg school shootings, terror attacks
By transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques: eg crime watch
As a target for crime eg theft
By stimulating desires for unaffordable goods: that encourages everyone to have whats being advertised
By portraying the police as incompetent: cant catch them
By glamourising offending: making it look cool- movies
A03: negative effects? Some people may not be harmed by it/ people are still concerned about effects on innocent childhood

14. Media, relative deprivation and crime
This considers how far media portray the ‘normal’ rather than criminal lifestyles encouraging people to commit crime
Left realists claim that the media help to increase the sense of relative deprivation- the feeling of being deprived relative to others among the poor and marginalised groups
Lea and young argue that the mass media have a standardised image of lifestyle, particularly in the area of popular culture and recreation, which for those who are unemployed, on low wages, increases their sense of relative deprivation
In todays society where all have media access, the media presents everyone with images of a materialistic ‘good life’ of leisure, fun and consumer goods as the norm to which we should all conform
The result is to stimulate the sense of relative deprivation and social exclusion felt by marginalised groups who are unable to afford these goods
Merton argues that the pressure to conform to the norm can cause deviant behaviour when the opportunity to achieve by legitimate means are blocked. As a result of this, the media are instrumental in setting social norms and thus promoting crime

15. Fear of crime

16. Since the media exaggerate the amount of violent and unusual crime, and they exaggerate the ricks of certain groups of people becoming victims of crime eg the elderly and women, it has been argued that they distort the public impression of crime causing an unrealistic fear of it
Research evidence suggests that there is a link between media use and the fear of crime
Gerbner et al found that those who watch tv for 4 hours or more each day had higher levels of fear of crime
Schlesinger and tumber: found a correlation between media consumption and fear of crime. Tabloid newspaper readers and those who watched high levels of tv expressing greater fear of becoming a victim of crime, especially physical attack and mugging
However, the existence of these correlations does not prove that the media causes fear of crime0 it might be that those who are already afraid of going out at night watch more tv because they stay at home more
Sparks 103: research into the effects of media ignores the meanings the viewers give to media violence. Eg different meanings may be given to violence in cartoons than news bulletins

17. Theoretical views on media and crime: moral panics
Moral panics are linked to labelling theory and he power of moral entrepreneurs to make labels stick
A moral panic is an exaggerated overreaction by society to a perceived problem. The group causing the moral panic are known as folk devils eg mods and rockers which were represented in a negative light influenced by the condemnation of the group by the moral entrepreneurs. This leads to further labelling a d a self fulfilling prophecy that amplifies the deviance (deviance amplification spiral)

18. Theories
Interactionism: Cohen and moral panics: these usually occur at times of social change reflecting the anxieties many people feel when accepted values are being undermined
Functionalism: these usually occur as a response to anomie and is a form of social control to bring back unification, social cohesion and to maintain the status quo
Neo Marxists: hall et al: the folk devils in a moral panic are used as a scapegoat to distract people from the problems caused by capitalism eg recession, unemployment
Traditional Marxists: part of the isa, indoctrinates individuals into the dominant ideology of the ruling class. Keeps us in false class consciousness

19. Global cyber crime

20. The arrival of new types of media is often met with a moral panic eg horror comics, cinema, television, videos and computer games have all been accused of undermining public morality and corrupting the young
The same is true of the internet. The internet has brought with it fears of cyber crime defined by Thomas and loader as computer- mediated activities that are either illegal or considered illict by some and that are conducted through global electronic networks
Jewkes states that the internet has created opportunities to commit conventional crimes such as fraud and new crimes such as software piracy

21. Well identifies 4 categories of cyber crime
1: cyber trespass: crossing boundaries into others cyber property. This includes hacking and sabotage such as spreading viruses
2: cyber deception and theft: including identity theft, ‘phishing’ (obtaining identity or bank details by deception) and the violation of intellectual property rights eg illegal downloading or software piracy
3: cyber- pornography: including porn involving minors and opportunities for children to access porn on the internet
4: cyber-violence: doing psychological harm of inciting physical harm, cyber violence including cyber stalking eg sending unwanted, threatening or offensive messages/ s and hate crimes against minority groups as well as bullying by text

22. Policing cyber crime
Difficult due to the scale of the internet as well as the limited resources of the police
Also difficult due to the globalised nature of the internet
New ict does however, provide the police and the state with greater opportunities for surveillance and controls of the population eg through the use of cctv cameras and electronic databases