Media and crime

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Fear of crime

Violent and unusual crime - exaggerated.
Risk of victimisation for young women and old people - exaggerated.
Distorting impressions, causing unrealistic fear of crime.
USA Gerbner - tv users over 4 hrs per day = higher fear of crime.
Schlesinger and Tumber - higher intake of media = higher fear of becoming a victim of crime.
Studies may be unrepresentative due to participants already having a fear of crime and therefore staying in causes a higher intake of media.
Sparks - shows an interpretivist view that violence in different contexts can have different meanings to different viewers e.g. Cartoon violence vs news reported violence.

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Media, relative deprivation and crime

Lab studies focus on how media representations of crime may lead viewers to committing crime.
Alternative is how portraying a 'normal' lifestyle may lead to crime.
Left realists - media increases sense of relative deprivation (poor and marginalised).
Lea and Young - the media popularise a high standard of lifestyle, those unemployed or on very low wage have a greater sense of relative deprivation.
Today's society - everywhere has access to a form of media, no matter how poor. Media promote materialistic lifestyle of leisure and fun that should be conformed to.
Groups who cannot afford these products are marginalised, socially excluded and have a sense of relative deprivation.
Merton - deviant behaviour develops when there is pressure to conform but cannot be achieved by legitimate means. The media set this norm and therefore promote crime. (Strain theory)

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Global cyber-crime

New types of media met with moral panic, same with Internet. Corrupting the young.
Douglas Thomas and Brian Loader - computer-mediated activities that are either illegal or considered illicit by some and that are conducted through global electronic networks.
Yvonne Jewkes - Internet creates opportunities for conventional crime and new crime using new tools.
Wall - 4 categories of cybercrime
1. Cyber-trespass - crossing into others cyber property, hacking and spreading viruses.
2. Cyber-deception and theft - identity theft, illegal downloads. 95% of music available online is downloaded illegally (Swash 2009).
3. Cyber-*********** - **** involving minors, easy access to **** on the Internet for children.
4. Cyber-violence - psychological harm or inciting physical harm. Cyber-stalking, threatening/offensive emails or texts.
Difficult to police because of huge scale of Internet combined with limited resources, low priority, lacks excitement.
Provides great opportunity for surveillance and control for police and government.
Jewkes - routine surveillance through CCTV, digital fingerprinting, electronic databases and 'smart' identity cards. Listening devices 'carnivores' monitors email traffic.

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