Media's Responsibility for Turning the Kray Twins From Villains into Heroes
The title of this essay already assumes that the Kray Twins were
villains and that they were actually seen as heroes. Not all of the
sources say either, that the twins were villains, or that the Twins
were heroes, some are objective. It could be said that the question is
biased towards the twins.
The British media often represented the East End of London as a
somewhat 'glamorous' and 'trendy area'. Photographs, by David Bailey,
showed young men dressed in 'stylish suits', 'narrow ties' and
'stovepipe trousers'. These quotes come from source 3. Later in the
same source the author, Jones, the East End being one of the best and
most prominent settings for thrillers and novels on which to be
written. He describes the 'evil' of the East End and its 'poverty
induced conditions' and how people lived their lives against a back
drop of 'drunkenness, immortality, 'rape' and 'assault' and how gangs
often ruled the streets. In a way Jones is trying to make acceptance
of the Krays behaviour because of their background, and because of the
conditions in which they were brought up and the people who they mixed
with, these were good enough excuses for the crimes, which they
committed.
Another source that suggests the media glamorised the Krays is source
4. It shows the promotional front cover of the video of the film 'The
Krays'. The cover shows Gary Kemp, who played Ronnie Kray holding a
gun. Where the contents of the film are rated it suggests that there
is 'violence' and 'strong sexual content' in the film. Both these
factors send out strong brutal messages about ...
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...er…would have been
hanged', a completely different opinion from source 3 'the heaviest
prison sentence ever handed down by a British court of law'.
Referring back to the question, most of the sources do suggest that
that the media were responsible sensationalising crime, in general.
There are certain sources, which certainly do glamorise the
environment of the Krays. It shows what a 'sheddy' place they were
surrounded by and the kind of people who lived around them source 3
really shows this. The Krays themselves were involved a lot in making
themselves celebrities and publicising their criminal activity, they
also had a way of manipulating the media into printing stories that
happened. The statement is an exaggeration of the truth, but the media
definitely played a part in advertising crime and making it 'trendy'.
Young journalists can learn a lot from Malcom’s book because it presents some troubling issues. A main issue would be the author-subject relationship and where the writer-friend line exist. The Journalist and the Murderer tells the story of Joe McGinnis and Jeffrey MacDonald. McGinnis is an author looking to write a book on MacDonald who is convicted of murdering his wife and two daughters. MacDonald wanted his voice to be heard, and he wanted to get his side of the story out to the world.
The aim of this report is to discuss the ways in which the media reports on crimes committed by children and teenagers. Using the James Bulger murder it will analyse and evaluate how the reporting of crime affects public perceptions of children, teenagers and crime. It will consider how the media influences governments, policies and legislation. The report will argue how the reporting of previous, high-profile cases concerning children and crime have impacted on the Youth Justice system and on society.
Despite all the people involved in the business that committed certain crimes, they also had their own opinion of deviance in their inner circle. Griselda Blanco for example, was a threat to the group, untrustworthy and psychotic to all other underground organizations. Law enforcement and media can be labeled as the social audience that involve people who accepted the mores of society and live by
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.
Sue Grafton once stated: “Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they're right.” This is clearly the thought the Boulder Colorado police conceived in the case of little beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. As many have observed from the onslaught of media coverage, the day after Christmas 1996, six year old Jon Benet Ramsey was found buried under a white blanket, bound, beaten, and strangled to death in the wine cellar of their Boulder home. With such a strikingly rare and glamorous story of a six year old beauty queen dead, who was a part of a “perfect American upper-middle class family”, combined with a lack of a lead and ever mounting suspicion piling up against the parents it was no surprise to find that it was fuel to the media and soon stories sold and became a matter of competition between the press. So, like wildfire, this heart-breaking story spread, stretching across the nation, shattering the souls of the world. News broadcasts, magazine and newspaper articles, and television specials all shaped and molded peoples perceptions of this beautiful child’s murder, especially her parents, John and Pasty Ramsey’s involvement or lack there of. The police and FBI’s merciless quest to connect Jon Benet’s murder to her parents, seemed to cause the them to overlook important evidence, or at the very least dismiss suspicious findings that would otherwise send red flags to investigators. There are many contributors as to why this case remains unsolved including lack of investigative expertise, failure to protect valuable evidence, and focusing too much on the parents as suspects but, ultimately, the over involvement of...
Since the war in Britain the most recurrent types of moral panic has been associated with the emergence of various form of youth (originally almost exclusively working class, but often recently middle class or student based) whose behaviour is deviant or delinquent. To a greater or lesser degree, these cultures have been associated with violence. The Teddy Boys, the Mods and Rockers, the Hells Angels, the skinheads and the hippies have all been phenomena of this kind (Cohen, 2002). Youth appeared as an emergent category in post-war Britain, on one of the most striking and visible manifestations of social changes in the period. Youth...
Clark, C, Ghosh, A, Green, E, Shariff,N. (n.d) Media Portrayal of Young People – impact and influences. [Internet], UK, Young Researcher Network. Available from: [Accessed 2nd January 2012]
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.
In reference to the media’s role, they have been highlighted for playing a part in maintaining these views by portraying victims in a certain way according to the newsworthiness of each story and their selectiveness (Greer, 2007). Furthermore, there has been an increase in both fictional crime programmes and crime documentaries, with Crimewatch particularly becoming a regular part of British viewing. In the modern context, crime has continued to represent a large proportion of news reporting and with the aid of social networking sites and self-publicity via the internet, journalists are now more able to dig even deeper into the lives of people on whom they wish to report. Newspapers continue to keep the public informed with the latest headlines and the internet has also provided opportunities for members of the public to have their input in blogs.
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.
This demonstrates that the media obviously over represents in violent crimes such as street crimes compared with other crimes such as property crimes (Moston, 2012). The media use this method to report crime in order to heighten the impact of crime and to gain the mass audience’s attention, which alternatively will result in more sales for media products. This approach is known as ‘postmodernism’ where the media report crime on the notion of ‘entertainment’ for consumers. Postmodernism approach rejects the causes and consequences of crime but instead focuses on impacts to the society to create fear within the community (Jewkes, 2010). Hence lead to crime wave reporting on issues like assaults, homicide and street crimes to allow for attention grabbing headlines providing maximum entertainment to consumers. Crime wave increases the public’s awareness of particular crimes due to extensive media coverage provided for crimes revolving around violence (White and Perrrone, 2015). As a result, this has lead to moral panic where the media coverage influence the public’s perception in believing that they are in physical threat from violent crimes. This is prime example of the media using discretionary powers to insert values and dominant interests into the community. Criminologist Gramsci developed
It's clear to see the media focuses on various reports, television shows, and even sitcoms regarding all forms of psychology. While watching television one can say media basically relies on psychology. The media of psychology views psychology through means of common sense versus an actual science. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processed. Behavior is anything you do that can be observed. In the media we can observe people through the television screen. Through our observations we learn from their behavior. For example in a famous experiment conducted by Albert Bandura called, "Bobo Doll Experiment," a preschool child is working on a drawing. An adult in another part of the room is building with Tinkertoys. The child is watching this adult through a television screen and watches as the adult gets up and for nearly ten minutes pounds, kicks, and throws around the room a large inflated Bobo doll, while yelling hurtful sayings such as, "Sock him in the nose" or "Hit him down" and even "Kick him". After the adult was done, the child was taken to another room and demonstrated the same actions as they have seen through the television screen to the Bobo Doll. It's clear to see from the experiment the media teaches society many aspects of psychology. From a psychological aspect we see a child observing violent behavior from what the media has presented. Humans learn through observation and in a world where technology is advancing, the media plays a large role.
Even though some critics say that each individual shouldn’t let others influence their life, celebrities and the media are seen everywhere and its almost impossible to ignore. Celebrities are sometimes looked up to by many people. This isn’t always a good thing. The media sometimes gives a bad influence to the people that see them. Some of the things that celebrities and the media influence are teens. Teen may began to copy these people they see and it can become a big problem. Some of the things that arise from copying them are drug abuse and addiction, problems with alcohol, eating disorders/ low self-esteem or confidence, and many more.
The Representation of Men and Women in the Media Men and women are both represented differently in the media these days. Then the sand was sunk. Ironically it was even represented differently in the title of this essay. Men came before women! I am writing an essay to explain how men and women are represented in the media.
As long as violent programmes are shown on TV, the role of the mass media becomes completely different from how it was originally treated. Violence is socially harmful and especially the youth are very prone to such scenes that may strongly affect their psyches. It is true that programmes featuring cruel pictures are marked as ‘only for adults’ but the time when they are emitted is relatively early and the access to them seems to be rather unlimited to young people.