Media as a cause of crime
- Created by: rebeccamellors
- Created on: 30-01-17 11:34
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- The Media as a Cause of Crime
- Ways it may cause crime:
- Imitation - providing deviant role models
- Arousal - through viewing violent/sexual imagery
- Desensitisation - repeatedly viewing violence
- By transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques
- As a target for crime - theft of TVs
- Stumlating desires for unaffordable goods
- Portraying police as incompetent
- Glamorising offending
- Fear of crime
- Media may be distorting public impression of crime & causing unrealistic fear of crime
- Media exaggerate amount of violent & unusual crime
- Exaggerate risks of certain groups being victims
- Research evidence supports the link between media use and fear of crime
- Gerbner et al found heavy users of TV had higher levels of fear of crime
- Schelesinger & Tumber (1992)found tabloid readers & heavy TV users expressed greater fear of being a victim
- However such correlations don't prove that media viewing causes fear
- Example - it may be those rho are already afraid of going out at night watch more TV due to staying in more
- Greer & Reiner (29012) note much 'effects' research on media as a cause of crime or fear ignores the meanings viewers give to media violence
- Media may be distorting public impression of crime & causing unrealistic fear of crime
- The media, relative deprivation & crime
- Alternative approach - consider how media portrayals of 'normal' rather than criminal lifestyle might encourage crime
- Left realists argue the mass media help increase the sense of relative deprivation among poor & marginalised social groups
- In todays society - poor groups even have media access - the media present all with images of materialistic 'good life' of leisure, fun & consumer goods as the norm to which they should conform
- Result is to stimulate relative deprivation & social exclusion felt by marginalised groups who can't afford these groups
- Merton - pressure to conform to norm can cause deviant behaviour when legitimate means are blocked
- Cultural Criminology, media & crime
- Argues the media turn crime itself into the commodity people desire
- Rather than producing crime to audience , the media encourages them to consume crime
- Hayward & Young (2012) see late modern society as media saturated where we are immersed in the 'mediascape'
- There is a blurring between the image & reality of crime so the two are no longer clearly distinct
- Media & the Commodification of crime
- Crime & its thrills become commodified
- Corporations & advertisers use media images of crime to sell products, especially in youth market
- Crime & deviance becomes a style to be consumed
- Ways it may cause crime:
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