Media Representations of Crime 1
- Created by: Jakeyboy13579
- Created on: 06-10-20 11:24
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- Media Representations of Crime 1
- How the Media Distorts the Image of Crime, Criminals and Policing
- Overrepresent Violent and Sexual Crimes
- Ditton and Duffy (1983) found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes yet these only made up 3% of crimes recorded by police
- Portrays Criminals and Victims as Older and More Middle Class
- Felson (1998) points that official stats show criminals and victims to be younger and more WC then what the media shows and he calls this "age fallacy"
- Media Overplays Extraordinary Crimes and Underplays Ordinary Crimes
- Felson (1998) refers to this as "dramatic fallacy"
- Similarly, the media leads us to believe that to commit crime and solve it a person needs to be daring and clever (the "ingenuity fallacy")
- Felson (1998) refers to this as "dramatic fallacy"
- Media Coverage Exaggerates Police Success in Solving Crime
- Partly because the police over represent violent crime and partly because the police want to be painted in a good light
- Media Exaggerates the Risk of Victimisation
- This is especially true for women, white people and higher status people
- Media Reports Crime as a Series of Separate Events
- Suggests crime is without structure and does not examine underlying causes of crime
- Overrepresent Violent and Sexual Crimes
- There is some evidence of changes in news coverage in the media
- Schlesinger and Tumber (1994) found that in the 60s the focus was on petty crimes and murders but in the 90s the focus was on drugs, child abuse terrorism etc
- Also evidence of increasing preoccupation with sex crime, as shown by Soothill and Walby (1991) as they found that newspaper reporting of **** cases increased from under a quarter of all cases in 41 to over a third in 85
- Schlesinger and Tumber (1994) found that in the 60s the focus was on petty crimes and murders but in the 90s the focus was on drugs, child abuse terrorism etc
- News Values and Crime Coverage
- Reiner (2007) suggests media coverage of C&D is filtered through the values and assumptions of journalists about what makes a story 'newsworthy'
- Stan Cohen and Jack Young (1973) note that news is not discovered, but manufactured
- Jewkes (2011) suggests stories are more likely to be reported if they contain the following news values:
- Dramatisation
- If the event is significant or dramatic enough to be news worthy
- Proximity
- If the event has cultural meaning or is physically close
- Simplification
- Whether events are easily understood
- Risk
- If the event can be presented as sufficiently serious
- Spectacle
- If there are graphic images or footage
- Status
- Events that involve celebrity or high status individuals
- Sex and Violence
- Events that have a sexual or violent element are considered more interesting
- Children
- Events involving children as either offenders or victims are considered more significant to report
- Dramatisation
- How the Media Distorts the Image of Crime, Criminals and Policing
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