The Media and Crime (AQA A-Level Sociology): Revision Notes
The Media and Crime
Media representations of crime
The relationship between media and crime is complex, with sociologists arguing that news reporting is not objective but socially constructed. Interactionists suggest that rather than providing impartial coverage, news content depends heavily on news values - the criteria journalists use to decide what stories are worth reporting.
News values are the guidelines used by journalists and other media personnel to determine whether a story is newsworthy. Understanding these values helps explain why certain crimes receive disproportionate coverage compared to others.
News values and crime reporting
A key news value is that 'negativity' attracts audiences - bad news sells better than good news. This helps explain why crime and deviance receive disproportionate media coverage compared to their actual occurrence in society.
The focus on dramatic and unusual crimes means that media representations often distort public understanding of crime patterns. This creates what sociologists call a fear of crime, particularly affecting vulnerable groups such as the elderly and women.
Media coverage of crime is not representative of actual crime statistics. The emphasis on violent and unusual crimes creates unrealistic public perceptions about the likelihood of becoming a victim of serious crime.
Felson's fallacies about crime
Felson (1998) identified several common misconceptions about crime that media reporting reinforces. These distortions are reinforced by fictional crime representations in television programmes, which tend to emphasise violent and sexual crimes in crime dramas.
Felson's Four Key Fallacies:
Age fallacy: Media suggests all age groups are equally involved in crime, when statistics show young people are disproportionately represented
Class fallacy: Middle-class people are portrayed as more likely to be victims, contradicting evidence showing working-class areas have higher crime rates
Efficiency fallacy: Police are shown as more effective than they actually are in solving crimes
Dramatic fallacy: Media emphasises violent and extraordinary crimes, creating unrealistic expectations about typical criminal behaviour
The media as a possible cause of crime
The hypodermic syringe model
There has been considerable debate about whether media content can directly influence behaviour, particularly among vulnerable groups like children. The hypodermic syringe model (HSM) argues there is a direct correlation between real-life violence and antisocial behaviour portrayed in films, song lyrics and computer games.
Research evidence on media effects
Newson (1994) argued that long exposure to violence throughout young people's lives leads to desensitisation to violence - they become socialised into accepting violent behaviour as normal. However, Buckingham (1993) claimed that children are media literate and can differentiate between fictional violence in computer games and real-life violence.
Cumberbatch (2004) reviewed over 3,500 research studies and concluded that evidence on the impact of media violence was inconclusive, suggesting the relationship is not as straightforward as the HSM suggests. This highlights the complexity of establishing direct causal relationships between media consumption and behaviour.
New opportunities for crime
Beyond violence imitation, media and technology have created new opportunities for criminal activity. Jewkes (2003) highlighted how the internet has facilitated new types of crime, particularly cybercrime including email scams, data theft and illegal pornography.
Additionally, new technology has given governments greater surveillance powers through CCTV cameras and digital fingerprinting, raising questions about the balance between security and civil liberties.
Moral panics
Interactionists argue that media labelling can actually cause crime through what S. Cohen (1972) described as a moral panic. Cohen argued that moral panics can lead to deviancy amplification, as occurred in his study of Mods and Rockers following the Easter Bank Holiday of 1964.
Cohen's stages of a moral panic
Cohen identified seven stages in the development of a moral panic, demonstrating how media reporting can escalate social reactions and ultimately create the very problems they claim to be reporting.
Cohen's Seven-Stage Moral Panic Model:
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Media reporting: An event is reported in an exaggerated way (e.g., "Youngsters beat up town")
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Symbolisation: The group is demonised using symbolic language (e.g., "Violent young rockers in leather jackets")
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Moral entrepreneurship: Politicians and authority figures react to media reports calling for action
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Prediction: Media predicts further trouble will occur
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Official response: Authorities increase police presence and make more arrests
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Group reaction: The targeted group becomes more deviant due to over-policing
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Spiral completion: The self-fulfilling prophecy and deviancy amplification spiral create two distinctive youth subcultures
Sociological explanations of moral panics
Different sociological perspectives offer varying explanations for why moral panics occur, each emphasising different aspects of social structure and power relations.
Cohen argued that moral panics happen during times of 'moral crisis' when society is undergoing major social change. Media portray members of new youth subcultures as folk devils, challenging traditional authority that 'decent' people should follow.
Functionalist Perspective: View moral panics as society's way of responding to anomie brought about by rapid social change. By focusing attention on the behaviour of folk devils, media help uphold social solidarity and ensure public demand for action to re-establish the status quo.
Neo-Marxist Perspective: Hall (1978) argued that moral panics serve ideological functions. He suggested that the moral panic over black muggers divided the white working class against the black working class, diverting attention from problems capitalism was facing at the time.
Left Realist Perspective: Reject the view that moral panics are simply the result of ruling-class ideology or biassed news values. They argue that moral panics reflect real concerns of marginalised groups, such as those living in inner-city areas where crime rates are genuinely higher.
Contemporary criticisms of moral panic theory
McRobbie and Thornton (1995) argue that moral panics are becoming outdated in the contemporary era. With 24-hour rolling news and new technology, they claim moral panics are harder to sustain as audiences are more active and able to challenge media presentations of events.
Some sociologists suggest that journalists may deliberately create moral panics to sell more newspapers when genuine news stories are lacking. This commercialisation of moral panic theory raises questions about its continued relevance in understanding media-crime relationships.
Key Points to Remember:
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Media representations of crime are socially constructed rather than objective, influenced by news values that prioritise dramatic and negative stories
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Felson identified key fallacies in crime reporting that distort public understanding of crime patterns and police effectiveness
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The evidence for media directly causing criminal behaviour through imitation is inconclusive, though new technologies have created fresh opportunities for crime
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Cohen's concept of moral panics shows how media labelling can lead to deviancy amplification through a seven-stage process
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Different sociological perspectives offer competing explanations for moral panics, from functionalist consensus to Marxist ideology critique
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Contemporary critics argue that moral panic theory may be less relevant in the digital age due to more active and critical media audiences