2. Mary Beard – historian, guest on BBC’s
Question Time (political debate show)
Mary Beard was called "a vile, spiteful excuse for
a woman, who eats too much cabbage and has
cheese straws for teeth“ on the website Don't
Start Me Off (and other things far worse)

3. Gary McKinnon – hacked into the
US government’s top secret military
and space research websites

4. GLOBAL CYBER-CRIME?
• Cyber-crime is one of the fastest-growing criminal
activities on the planet
• Cyber-crime is essentially the use of global
computer networks to commit crime
• Thomas &Loader define it as computer-mediated
activities that are either illegal or considered
illegal by some and that are conducted through
global electronic networks
• High-tech criminals of the digital age have not
been slow to spot the new opportunities

5. Wall (2001) identifies 4 categories of
cyber-crime
PDTV
1 Cyber-trespass
2 Cyber-deception and theft
3 Cyber-pornography
4 Cyber-violence

6. TASK 1 classifying cyber crime
Slot the cyber crimes you have thought up into Wall’s 4-fold classification. If any don’t
seem to fit put them in the ‘OTHER FORMS’ category
Category of Cyber Crime
(Wall)
1 Cyber-trespass
2 Cyber-deception and
theft
3 Cyber-pornography
4 Cyber-violence
OTHER FORMS (which
don’t seem to fit Wall’s
classification system)
Examples

7. TASK 2 policing cyber crime
Policing and controlling cyber crime has proved to be
extremely challenging. Can you think of any reasons
why? Make a note of them below
1 Scale of the internet and the limited resources of the
police
2 It is globalised – it crosses national borders and so it
is poses problems of which country should someone be
prosecuted for an internet offence
3 In police culture it is given low priority because it
lacks the excitement of conventional policing

8. MEDIA AS THE CAUSE OF CRIME
• Groups at the back of the room: Think of as
many different ways the media might
generate/cause crime and deviance
• Groups at the front of the room – you are
going to classify these for us using your sheets

9. THE MEDIA AS A CAUSE OF CRIME

10. THE MEDIA AS A CAUSE OF CRIME
Some of these ways include:
1 IMITATION – by providing deviant role models, copycat behaviour results
2 AROUSAL – through viewing violent or sexual imagery
3 DESENSITISATION e.g. through repeated viewing of violence
4 BY TRANSMITTING KNOWLEDGE of criminal techniques e.g. how to hot wire cars
5 AS A TARGET FOR CRIME e.g. Antiques Roadshow, highlighting wealthy neighbourhoods...
6 BY STIMULATING DESIRES – for goods that people cannot afford e.g. advertising
7 BY PORTRAYING THE POLICE AS INCOMPETENT – easy to fool, little chance of getting caught
8 BY GLAMOURISING OFFENDING
9 BY GENERATING MORAL PANICS (public outcries) which lead to a DEVIANCY AMPLIFICATION
SPIRAL

11. THE MEDIA AS A CAUSE OF CRIME
Ironically it seems crime and deviance might be generated
through the media in two ways:
A When the media portray and glamorise criminal and
deviant lifestyles and acts
B When the media portray and glamorise NON-criminal
and deviant lifestyles and acts

12. A When the media portray and glamorise criminal
and deviant lifestyles and acts
EXAMPLE 1: IMITATION and/or AROUSAL
• There has been a longstanding concern that the media
can have a negative effect on attitudes, values and
behaviour – especially on the young This has often
been seen in terms of ‘moral decline’/corruption.
• Grand Theft Auto (computer game) has been accused
of encouraging violence and criminality.
• Famously the film A Clockwork Orange was withdrawn
from cinemas in the Uk in 1971 because it had been
accused of generating a copycat rape and murder. The
ban lasted 27 years

14. A famous laboratory experiment conducted in 1977 by
Albert Bandura claimed to have made a link
Between children watching aggressive behaviour and acting
violently themselves.

16. B When the media portray and glamorise NONcriminal and deviant lifestyles and acts
BY STIMULATING DESIRES – for goods that
people cannot afford e.g. through
advertising, celebrity culture etc
I’m Hector
Riva...Welcome to
my world

17. All notes away, answer the following
questions:
Q1 Define cyber crime
Q2 Write down 3 examples of cyber crime
Q3 Write down Wall’s 4 categories of cyber crime
Q4 Write down 4 ways the media could be seen to generate
crime
Q5 Which perspective?
a) Rampant advertising of consumer products while
simultaneously marginalizing certain groups and denying
them the chance to obtain these goods legitimately creates
relative deprivation which leads to crime. Which
perspective?
b) The media generate crime by peddling the image of the
ultra-tough black ghetto superstar. Which perspective?
c) The media created the black mugger which the government
used as a diversionary tactic to turn people’s heads from
the failures of capitalism. Which perspective?

18. Answers to Quick Check Questions on page 124
Violent crime is over-represented; police success is exaggerated; victims and criminals
are seen as older and more middle-class than those who appear in the official
statistics; crimes are often represented as daring and ingenious; crimes by strangers are
over-represented.
Hacking; spreading viruses; identity theft; internet pornography; cyber-stalking.
The media may promote fear of crime by exaggerating the amount and seriousness of
crime and the risks to groups such as young women and old people.
Immediacy; dramatisation; personalisation; any of the news values listed on page 119.
The amount of deviance increasing or appearing to increase. The media contribute to
deviance amplification by highlighting deviant behaviour and by calling for measures to
control it, which may produce a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By imitation, arousal, desensitisation, or any of the other ways listed on page 120.
Exaggeration/distortion; prediction; symbolisation; linking unconnected events; by
calling for a crackdown; by defining deviant identities and providing deviant role
models.
McRobbie and Thornton argue that moral panics are less likely nowadays because
audiences are accustomed to exaggerated shock stories and don’t ‘panic’. There is less
agreement in society about what is deviant. It is not clear why some problems are
amplified and others not. It is not clear why the reaction should be seen as
‘disproportionate’ rather than rational.
QUESTION

19. Answers to Quick Check Questions on page 124
QUESTION
Violent crime is over-represented; police success is exaggerated; victims and criminals
are seen as older and more middle-class than those who appear in the official
statistics; crimes are often represented as daring and ingenious; crimes by strangers are
over-represented.
2
Hacking; spreading viruses; identity theft; internet pornography; cyber-stalking.
8
The media may promote fear of crime by exaggerating the amount and seriousness of
crime and the risks to groups such as young women and old people.
3
Immediacy; dramatisation; personalisation; any of the news values listed on page 119.
1
The amount of deviance increasing or appearing to increase. The media contribute to
deviance amplification by highlighting deviant behaviour and by calling for measures to
control it, which may produce a self-fulfilling prophecy.
5
By imitation, arousal, desensitisation, or any of the other ways listed on page 120.
4
Exaggeration/distortion; prediction; symbolisation; linking unconnected events; by
calling for a crackdown; by defining deviant identities and providing deviant role
models.
6
McRobbie and Thornton argue that moral panics are less likely nowadays because
audiences are accustomed to exaggerated shock stories and don’t ‘panic’. There is less
agreement in society about what is deviant. It is not clear why some problems are
amplified and others not. It is not clear why the reaction should be seen as
‘disproportionate’ rather than rational.
7