1. Crime and Deviance
Media

2. Lesson Objectives
• Introduce how the media portray crime
• Look at ways in which the media might
be a cause of crime and of the fear of
crime
• Look at the role the media play in
creating moral panics

3. Starter
• How does the media represent Crime
and Deviance?
• Can they be accused of
sensationalisation?
• Do they cause a moral panic?
• What folk devils have been created
from Media Coverage?

4. Facts
• Richard Ericson et al’s (1991) study of
Toronto found that 45-71% of the press
and radio news was about deviance and its
control
• Williams & Dickinson (1993)- British
newspapers devote up to 30% of their
news space to crime
• While the news media show an interest in
crime, they give a distorted image of
crime, criminals and policing (compared to OS)

5. Key Words
• Age Fallacy- media representations give
impression that all age groups are involved in crime
• Dramatic Fallacy- the media focus on violent
crimes therefore creating fear of crime esp among
elderly and women by over focusing on crimes
against these groups
• Ingenuity Fallacy- Media give impression that
criminals are clever, yet most crime is opportunistic
• Class Fallacy- Media give impression that M/C are
more likely to be victims of crime
• Police Fallacy- Media give impression that the
police are more efficient than they really are

6. News Values and Crime Coverage
• The distorted picture of crime painted
by the news media reflects the fact
that news is a social construction.
• Cohen & Young- news is not discovered
but manufactured (some stories
selected, while others are rejected)
• News value- criteria by which
journalists and editors decide whether
a story is newsworthy

7. • Key News Values influencing the selection
of crime stories include:
1. Immediacy
2.Dramatisation- action & excitement
3.Personalisation- human interest stories
about individuals e.g. Violent & sexual crimes
4.Higher Status persons- e.g. celebrities
5.Simplification- eliminating shades of grey
6.Novelty or unexpectedness- new angle
7.Risk- victim centred stories
8.Violence- visible and spectacular acts

8. Activity
• Using the same newspapers as earlier
find some crime stories in the national
and local press. Which news values do
the stories reflect?

9. Fictional Representations of Crime
• Fictional representations of crime form
TV, cinema and novels are important
sources of our knowledge of crime (a lot
of their output is crime related)
• Mandel (1984)- from 1945- 1984 over 10
billion crime thrillers were sold
worldwide, 25% of prime time TV and
20% of films are crime shows or movies
(what examples are there?)

10. • Fictional representations follow
Surette’s ‘law of opposites’ (opp to OS,
and similar to news coverage).
• Property crime is under represented,
while violence, drugs and sex crimes are
over represented
• Fictional sex crimes are committed by
psychopaths, not acquaintances
• Fictional cops usually catch the bad guy

11. • However three recent trends are worth
noting:
1. Reality shows tend to feature young,
non white ‘underclass’ offenders
2.There is an increasing tendency to show
police as corrupt, brutal and less
successful
3.Victims have become more central, with
police portrayed as avengers and
audiences invited to identify with their
suffering

12. The Media as a cause of Crime
• Concern that media has –ve effect on
attitudes, values and behaviour (esp. on
young, lower class and uneducated)
• Blame for decline in behaviour shifted
from cinema-horror comics-video
nasties-rap lyrics and now computer
games

13. Ways in which the media may
cause C&D
• Imitation- providing deviant role models,
resulting in copycat behaviour (Bandura)
• Arousal- through viewing violent imagery
• Desensitisation- repeatedly viewing violence
• Transmitting knowledge of criminal
techniques
• Target of crime e.g. Theft of plasma TV’s
• Stimulating desires for unaffordable goods-
through advertising
• Glamourising offending

14. AO2
• Most studies have found that exposure
to media violence has at most a small
and limited –ve effect on audiences
• Sociologists note that this link is
simplistic because it fails to recognise
that audiences differ in terms of age,
social class, IQ and level of education
and so do not react in the same way to
media content

15. AO2
• Fails to appreciate nature of violence
caused by a range of factors e.g. Poor
socialisation, bad parenting, peer group
influences, mental illness, drugs and
alcohol
• Most research uses lab experiments
(allows control of variables however
artificiality undermines validity), also
cannot measure LT effects

16. Fear of Crime
• The media exaggerate the amount of
violent crime and the risks of certain
groups becoming victims e.g. Young women
and elderly
• Research to an extent supports the view
that media cause fear of crime
• Schlesinger & Tumbler (1992)- tabloid
readers and heavy users of TV expressed
greater fear of going out at night and of
becoming victims

17. Media, Relative Deprivation and Crime
• Left Realists argue that the mass media help
to increase the sense of relative deprivation
(feelings of deprivation relative to others)
among poor and marginalised social groups
• In today’s society even the poorest have
media access, the media present people with
images of a materialistic ‘good life’ as a goal
to which they should strive
• Stimulating the sense of relative deprivation
and social exclusion felt by marginalised
groups who cannot afford the goods

18. • As Merton suggests pressure to
conform to the norm can cause deviant
behaviour when the opportunity to
achieve by legitimate means is blocked.
• The media is instrumental in setting the
norm and therefore promoting crime.

19. Stan Cohen
• Moral Panic: An exaggerated over reaction by society to a
perceived problem- driven/inspired by Media
• Media plays a crucial role in the social construction of C&D
• Distorting and exaggeration by the media create a public
reaction. This leads to the public labelling certain groups (sfp).
• Moral entrepreneurs: editors, police officers, politicians, legal
profession.
• The media interest and exaggerated reporting leads to a social
reaction and amplification (a deviancy amplification spiral), as
more interest in fact leads to the identification of more of the
offending behaviour.
• Selective reporting actually creates the crime problem.

20. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=19xJIedrrfA

21. Mods and Rockers (pg 122)
• Who were the Mods & Rockers?
• What happened in Clacton during the Easter
Weekend?
• The media over-reaction to the events involved 3
elements, what were they?
• How was the turn of events linked to the idea of
deviance amplification spiral?
• How did the Media’s definition of the situation create
a Moral Panic?
• How does Cohen link moral panics to a ‘boundary
crisis’?
• What criticism of moral panics are there?

22. Perspectives of Moral Panics
• Functionalism- see moral panics as ways of
responding to the sense of anomie
(normlessness) created by change. By
dramatising the threat to society in the form
of a folk devil, the media raise the collective
consciousness and reassert social controls
when central values are threatened.
• Neo-Marxism- Hall et al argue that the
moral panic over ‘mugging’ served to distract
attention from the crisis of capitalism (dividing
W/C on racial grounds)

23. H/W
• Thomas and Loader (2000)- cyber crime
is computer mediated activities that are
either illegal or considered illicit, and
are conducted through global electronic
networks
1. Read through Global cyber crime and summarise
2. Mind map Crime and Media topic

24. Essay Practice
• Examine some of the ways in which
deviance may be related to the mass
media (21m)

25. The media and crime News as socially constructed Fictional crime
 The media over-represent ‘The news is not discovered but Our ideas of crime
violence and sex crimes – manufactured’ says Cohen and don’t just come from
this make us think its Young. What they mean is what the news. Fictional
happening more and that gets coverage depends on what representation of
most killers are strange has happened, who is involved, crime comes from
psychopaths – in most when and where. Crime by its books, films and TV
cases the perpetrator is very definition is abnormal and shows. They tend to
know to the victim. ticks most of these news worthy match the incorrect
boxes. stereotypes of the
 The media portray
media.
criminals and victims as Mass media and
older and more middle-
crime
class.
Can the media cause How could the media
 Media coverage cause crime?
exaggerates police success crime or fear?
in clearing up cases. Most studies show media  Imitation – copycats.
 The media exaggerates the violence has at most a small  Desensitisation.
risk of victimisation, and limited negative effect
on audiences. Studies do  Learning criminal
especially women. techniques.
show those that watch TV
 The media overplay for longer periods of time  Desire for
extraordinary crimes but are more likely to be fearful unaffordable goods.
underplay ordinary crimes. of becoming a victim.
 Glamorising offending.

26. New media – new crime Cyber-crime
Cinema, television, computer games and the  Cyber-trespass – includes hacking and
internet have all been blamed for spreading viruses.
corrupting the young. The internet has
grown so quickly its brought about cyber  Cyber –deception and theft – identify
crime. Defined as computer-meditated theft, illegal downloading.
criminal activities conducted through global  Cyber-pornography – illegal porn involving
electronic networks. children.
 Cyber-violence – bullying by text,
threatening e-mails, cyber stalking.
Stanley Cohen Mass media and
crime
Cohen studied how the
media has often demonised
youth culture. This Deviancy amplification spiral
happened to mods and
Rockers in 1964 who were This idea says that sensationalist
seen as modern day folk reporting by the newspapers distorts the
devils who threatened act of crime or deviance and increases
social order. His research public awareness. Public pressure is put
found that actual acts of on the police and courts to act. This
deviant acts were minimal. creates a moral panic where certain acts
or groups are seen as a threat to social
order.