Media Representations Of Crime
1) Electronic Gaming:
• some games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA) have been seen to glamorise moral
crimes like prostitution
• the depiction of car thefts is also glamorised, which can cause players to think
of a life of crime as being lavish, which is possibly further proven through the
encounters with prostitutes and purchases of firearms - linked to wealth and
other material desires
• a lot of crime-related games involve violence like shooting
*Examples:
• Halo 3: has an age rating of 17+ and includes depictions of gore and violence
with gameplay involving blood and weapons such as guns and grenades
• Daniel Petric: is a convicted murderer from Ohio with a gaming addiction - at
the age of 16 he attempted to murder his parents and was able to kill his mother
successfully but his father only sustained a critical injury and survived; daniel’s
motive behind this crime was to get revenge on his parents after his father had
taken away his copy of the video game Halo 3
*Statistics:
• more than 90% of games with teen/mature ratings have some kind of violent
imagery
2) Social Media:
• social media can be used for both negative and informative ways in relation to
crime representation - negative in the way that it can be used to promote hate
crimes and racism and organise different events related to these crimes such as
gang assaults and some modern criminals even advertise online their crimes
after they’ve been committed, by uploading pictures and videos; however,
members of the public along with law enforcement can raise awareness about
different crimes quickly and are able to reach out to people on large scales
through social media platforms such as Twitter
*Examples:
• Brandon Clark: was responsible for the murder of Bianca Devins in 2019 and
posted snippets of the aftermath along with cryptic messages detailing what he
had done online, on platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat and even sent
images of Bianca deceased to her friends, along with posting the images on
websites such as 4Chan which began to then spread cross the internet like
wildfire
• Jill Meagher: when she went missing in Australia in 2012, a poster about her
disappearance had been created and uploaded onto Facebook by her family
members on a Sunday and had gained over 67,000 supporters by Wednesday
morning and a further 60,000 the next day: on Twitter her name had been
mentioned more than 12 million times
*Statistics:
• in New York, The Utica police department have stated that they were able to
conduct 11 successful arrests within 4 months through the use of social media
within their investigations
1) Electronic Gaming:
• some games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA) have been seen to glamorise moral
crimes like prostitution
• the depiction of car thefts is also glamorised, which can cause players to think
of a life of crime as being lavish, which is possibly further proven through the
encounters with prostitutes and purchases of firearms - linked to wealth and
other material desires
• a lot of crime-related games involve violence like shooting
*Examples:
• Halo 3: has an age rating of 17+ and includes depictions of gore and violence
with gameplay involving blood and weapons such as guns and grenades
• Daniel Petric: is a convicted murderer from Ohio with a gaming addiction - at
the age of 16 he attempted to murder his parents and was able to kill his mother
successfully but his father only sustained a critical injury and survived; daniel’s
motive behind this crime was to get revenge on his parents after his father had
taken away his copy of the video game Halo 3
*Statistics:
• more than 90% of games with teen/mature ratings have some kind of violent
imagery
2) Social Media:
• social media can be used for both negative and informative ways in relation to
crime representation - negative in the way that it can be used to promote hate
crimes and racism and organise different events related to these crimes such as
gang assaults and some modern criminals even advertise online their crimes
after they’ve been committed, by uploading pictures and videos; however,
members of the public along with law enforcement can raise awareness about
different crimes quickly and are able to reach out to people on large scales
through social media platforms such as Twitter
*Examples:
• Brandon Clark: was responsible for the murder of Bianca Devins in 2019 and
posted snippets of the aftermath along with cryptic messages detailing what he
had done online, on platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat and even sent
images of Bianca deceased to her friends, along with posting the images on
websites such as 4Chan which began to then spread cross the internet like
wildfire
• Jill Meagher: when she went missing in Australia in 2012, a poster about her
disappearance had been created and uploaded onto Facebook by her family
members on a Sunday and had gained over 67,000 supporters by Wednesday
morning and a further 60,000 the next day: on Twitter her name had been
mentioned more than 12 million times
*Statistics:
• in New York, The Utica police department have stated that they were able to
conduct 11 successful arrests within 4 months through the use of social media
within their investigations
