Media and Crime:
Intro:
Media is argued to be a cause of crime, and it also
misrepresents/distorts criminality
While the agents of socialisation provide the “carrot” by
encouraging certain actions, agents of control represent the “stick”
that brings people into line if they display deviant behaviour - media
is an agent
Media outlets, such as newspapers and TV, devote large portions of
their content to coverage of crime - films, novels and videogames
have similar focus
Pearson claims media has encouraged a “fear and fascination” with
crime, also acting as force of social control by wanting to avoid our
name in the media
Point 1: News Values
AO2:
General criteria such as “negativity” which journalists use to
determine whether or not an event is newsworthy
Existence of news values is why many sociologists view news as a
social construction
Spencer Thomas defines news values as criteria that determines the
worth of a news story
Brighton and Foy suggest news values are often “informal,
unconscious events.” Crime often meets these criteria which
explains why it gets so much media coverage
Galtung and Rouge analysed international news across a group of
newspapers in Norway and identified news values like
“unambiguity,” and “personalisation”
Violence outside a football game has greater news value than a
company who breaks health and safety laws, hence will get
published
Greer also believes that media exaggerates the extent of violent
crime
A number of articles have suggested that fallacies about crime
consist of: police efficiency fallacy, dramatic fallacy and ingenuity
fallacy
Police efficiency fallacy: the cop usually gets his man. In reality,
most crime goes unsolved, for example, less than a quarter of
burglaries lead to charging of an offender - Smith, Taylor and Elkin
Dramatic fallacy: crime stories often focus on murder and rape, but
these crimes are rare and are usually the result of quarrels or
fighting - Felson
Ingenuity fallacies: the suggestion that criminals plan their actions
and are clever. However, most crime is opportunistic, so people act
on impulse, perhaps taking less than a minute to commit an act,
rather than it being premeditated
AO3:
Intro:
Media is argued to be a cause of crime, and it also
misrepresents/distorts criminality
While the agents of socialisation provide the “carrot” by
encouraging certain actions, agents of control represent the “stick”
that brings people into line if they display deviant behaviour - media
is an agent
Media outlets, such as newspapers and TV, devote large portions of
their content to coverage of crime - films, novels and videogames
have similar focus
Pearson claims media has encouraged a “fear and fascination” with
crime, also acting as force of social control by wanting to avoid our
name in the media
Point 1: News Values
AO2:
General criteria such as “negativity” which journalists use to
determine whether or not an event is newsworthy
Existence of news values is why many sociologists view news as a
social construction
Spencer Thomas defines news values as criteria that determines the
worth of a news story
Brighton and Foy suggest news values are often “informal,
unconscious events.” Crime often meets these criteria which
explains why it gets so much media coverage
Galtung and Rouge analysed international news across a group of
newspapers in Norway and identified news values like
“unambiguity,” and “personalisation”
Violence outside a football game has greater news value than a
company who breaks health and safety laws, hence will get
published
Greer also believes that media exaggerates the extent of violent
crime
A number of articles have suggested that fallacies about crime
consist of: police efficiency fallacy, dramatic fallacy and ingenuity
fallacy
Police efficiency fallacy: the cop usually gets his man. In reality,
most crime goes unsolved, for example, less than a quarter of
burglaries lead to charging of an offender - Smith, Taylor and Elkin
Dramatic fallacy: crime stories often focus on murder and rape, but
these crimes are rare and are usually the result of quarrels or
fighting - Felson
Ingenuity fallacies: the suggestion that criminals plan their actions
and are clever. However, most crime is opportunistic, so people act
on impulse, perhaps taking less than a minute to commit an act,
rather than it being premeditated
AO3:
