We live in a “dramatized world” (Ericson 1991: 235) where representations of crime are fundamentally mediatized phenomena. And whether it be in print and broadcast news, feature film, or television entertainment, it is now widely acknowledged that across the media there is an overwhelming focus on the most serious examples of crime and victimization, highlighting images of extreme violence and sexual offence to a public hungry for sensationalism (Greer, 2007: 21). In contrast, white-collar and corporate offences, which place major social and financial burden on society, as well as lower-level property offences which in of themselves make up the vast majority of recorded crime, are given sparse attention, if not completely ignored altogether …show more content…
At times, it becomes difficult to separate the factual from the fictional. Crime reporting even uses actual film footage of criminal acts sometimes still in progress as we witnessed the murder of Ahmed, the policeman, gunned down by terrorists on the streets of Paris during the recent Charlie Hebdo massacre. The consequential judgments and the public’s fear of crime seem fairly understandable when crime stories comprise 10 to 50% of all news stories (Gruenewald et al., 2009: 262) and 76% of the public claim they form their opinions about crime from what they see or read in the news, in comparison to the 22% who state they get their primary information on crime from personal experience (Dorfman & Schiraldi, 2001). More importantly still, political decisions seem to reflect the media’s depictions, as seen in the European Leaders marching hand in hand after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. As horrific as the Paris killings were, the bias of attention towards favouring this First World news story left the 2,000 murders of Third World civilians by Boko Haram virtually unreported. Policy making can be altered by news coverage too as seen in 2006, when the UK government spent £29.5 billion on public order and safety after a year of high numbers of crime stories being released (Duffy et al 2007: 16). Thus, it has become a vicious circle, in which “public spending affects the underlying state of the world and the distortion arises from the inability of the public to learn the true state of the world due to selective reporting by the media which responds to consumers’ appetite for sensational news”
Media representation has always been a topic of debate, from representation of minority groups, individuals with mental illnesses and gender presentations. The latter, of course, turns mostly towards the female characters as they are presented in various medias; movies, news, and television shows. The representation of women in the media has always been leaning more towards ‘pleasing’ than it is towards informative or accurate. Representation of female offenders in the media has not deviated from the route that other representations of female factions has gone, focusing more on what is pleasing and entertaining than what is not harmful to the demographic as a whole. Women who are represented as offenders are done so in a way that is biased and very narrow in scope considering the sensitive topics that are covered under such an umbrella, and because the public generally does not have much contact with this particular faction, then there opinions are shaped wholly by what the media has to say about what these offenders are like, which is wholly inaccurate and harmful towards the women and girls that are involved with the criminal justice system.
Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group, frequently a minority group or subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses menace to society. These panics are generally fuelled by the media, although not always caused by, media coverage of social issues… These panics can sometimes lead to mob violence… (newsfilter.co.uk).
In America, violence has always been an integral part of national culture. Crime and bloodshed are glorified both on and off screen. The more disturbing the act of violence, the more enthralled the public seems. The most prolific of crimes, those committed by infamous serial killers, inspire the most attention. As said by Jeff Lindsay, creator of the book series that inspired the wildly-popular television program, Dexter, “We’re sickened and disgusted, but we need to know. And the more we know about the scene, the more we really are horrified” (“Sympathy for the Devils”). Violence, especially committed by this special class of felons, is enthralling. News reports play a role in this strange attraction, as it is through the news that people even have knowledge of such killers, but the evolution in the “serial killer genre” (Lindsay, “Sympathy for the Devils”) of film and television helps to desensitize people to the gruesome murders that are committed. This begs the question of whether this disturbing trend should be stopped, lest the American “culture of violence” (this has a source) continues to grow stronger. Through news reports, film, and television, criminals are constantly romanticized through use of sympathetic characterization and gratuitous depictions of their crimes, which lends to peoples’ increasingly positive attitudes toward violence and, in turn, feeds the growing culture of violence in America.
The media plays a huge role in forming people's perceptions of crime. Without the media we would remain ignorant to occurrences outside our direct social groups. The media and especially news coverage therefore provides us with an important point of contact with the rest of society. In evaluating its effect on popular perceptions of crime it becomes important to consider where most of the information comes from and how representative it is on actual criminality. If it takes "facts" (the truth, the actual event, a real thing) or if it is heightened to a crime myth. With a myth being based upon "exaggeration" or heightening of "ordinary" events in life. Crime myths become a convenient mortar to fill gaps in knowledge and to provide answers to question social science either cannot answer or has failed to address. Myths tend to provide the necessary information for the construction of a "social reality of crime (Quinney, 1970)." As crime related issues are debated and re debated, shaped and reshaped in public forms, they become distorted into myth, as largely seen in the mass media.
“Crime myths are powerful constructions of reality because they speak to our personal values and beliefs and are steeped in rich symbolism, which reinforces those values and belief.” (Kappeler & Potter, 2004) Crime myths are created when a series of fictional events that are later altered so that they become social and political problems. The media plays a major role in the creation of crime myths they broadcast images and videos to go along with the crime myths, they also use social context that play on humans thought on the community seeing it as unsafe. Myths also contain some measure of economic conditions that then cause reactions by politicians to create new laws to prevent these myths from becoming major problems in the criminal justice system. (K&P, 2004) In order for a statement to be characterized as a crime myth, if the crimes instill fear and threaten the vast majority of society. (K&P,2004) Crime myths are made up of components that targets and identify of a distinct deviant population, they involve innocent and helpless victims, the emergence of brave and virtuous hearos ,comes as a threat to peoples established norms, values, or traditional lifestyles.
The general public of Australia has a common aspect when associated with their sources of knowledge of crime. Many would agree the media, especially newspapers and television, are their most frequent and well known source of crime activity. The media updates society with data about the extent, frequency and types of crimes committed (Moston and Coventry, 2011, p.53). Studies highlight our grasp of crime is majorly derived from the media, with a lack of exposure to police statistics or victimisation surveys. There is a concern in correlation to this fact since the media has inconsistency and inaccuracy in reporting crime. Due to this, the media can misrepresent victims and perpetrators, downsizing them to recognisable stereotypes (Moston and
The media, both in the mainstream and alternative sources, determine how the community view crime and how it represents the victims of crime, criminals and law enforcement officials. Media organisations have arguably become the main source of news, entertainment, recreation, and product information in society. For many people, media outlets such as newspapers, magazines, social media and television broadcasts informs viewers about events that affect their everyday lives. This essay it will explore the many variations of how crime is mispresented to society through mass media organisations.
Generally, the study of crime mainly focused on the offender until quite recently. In fact, Shapland et al (1985) described the victim as ‘the forgotten man’ of the criminal justice system and ‘the non-person in the eyes of the professional participants’. A new perspective was brought with victimology, an expanding sub-discipline of crimin...
White, R., and Perrone, S. (2009) Crime, Criminality and Criminal Justice. Melbourne: Oxford University [Chapter 2 ‘Crime and the Media’]
Ruggiero, V. (2012). How Public is Public Criminology? Crime Media Culture , 8 (2), 151-160.
The mass media is a vehicle for delivering information and to entertain. But implications that the media do more harm than good concerning its practices and its effects on the public. The two main categories of mass media are print media and electronic media. Although they overlap in some areas, they differ mostly in the subject matter they cover and in their delivery methods. Research had been conducted in using both these forms to gauge the impact that each one has on the public. Print media tends to be more factual based whereas electronic media tend to focus more on visual aids to help relay the information. The public’s fear of crime has an impact on the public agenda of policy makers. Fear of crime not only affects individual but may also have an impact on the laws that affect crime control and prevention.
Throughout society there are both individuals and groups of people with a wide range of perceptions about crime and justice. These perceptions are influenced by the media and what the media presents. Media presents crime stories in ways that selectively distort and manipulate public perception, thus creating a false picture of crime. Therefore the media provides us with perceptions and social constructions about our world. Firstly I will be discussing the role of the media in constructing knowledge about crime. I will begin by explaining why the media is important, and go further to explain that media representations construct knowledge of crime and since knowledge about crime is constructed it does not necessarily capture reality in fact crime stories are often sensationalised. I will then link this to my central argument that the media shapes people’s perceptions of crime and how this is important as it can lead to changes in the law. I will then explain what it is that the public or society needs to be aware of when reading and watching media reports about crime. We need to be aware of bias and moral panics that are created by the media and how the media shapes or influence’s public perception through this, it is important for us to be aware of misleading or false crime stories so that we are not swayed by the media in believing what they want us to believe.
The media today is often taken for granted; as people don’t realize the dominance the media source holds in the modern world. Through media sources such as newspaper, TV and social media crime could be easily spread through out the world within seconds. As a result of this, humans understanding of crime and crime control are largely relied upon the media as evidently most people will not be in those serious criminal situations. The media however takes advantage of this situation by exaggerating crime scenes and focusing on particular crimes to make the public fear. Particular groups in the media are stereotyped to an extent where the public foresees then as ‘dangerous’. As a consequence, a change in the public’s perception of crime has forced
In conclusion, our knowledge of criminal events is somewhat ambiguous by other sources prone to manipulation and error (Skogan, 1975) unless we report the criminal acts we witness, there will always be a ‘dark figure’ in crime
In society today the media’s has an extensive influence on the public by mediums such as the internet, television news, newspapers and radio. In addition, crime is often considered both a source of news and entertainment with such programs as CSI, NCIS and Criminal Minds being some amongst many others that also influence public perception on crime (Hayes & Levett, 2013). Evidence shows that the medias portrayal of crime can indeed affect the public’s perception although evidence will demonstrates that crime perception can be unique to each individual. Evidence shows that media reports have the potential to strongly influence people’s daily activities (Weatherburn and Indermaur, 2004). When the media reports on a crime it triggers an effect