Mass Media and Public Attitude to Crime in Britain

An Objective inquiry by Dr. Ignatius Gwanmesia into the importance of the influence of the mass media on our attitude to crime.

Introduction

The British crime phobia “in part generated by sensationalist media coverage”, Kirsta (2001, p. 5); the corresponding prioritisation of crime-related debates in most party manifestos, Brand and Price, (2000, p. i); the reciprocal investigations into the impact of media messages on crime attitudes are justified on the reality that “every seconds somewhere in Britain a crime is being committed, and popular newspapers outbid one another to present ever more sensationally lurid coverage of muggings, murders and rapes” Kirsta, (1988, p. 4). While prevailing circumstances may give the impression of a crime epidemic partly due to mass media influence, pinions about direct correlates are not only polarised but problematic in validity and reliability. In analysing the mass media influence on public attitude to crime, I will start by defining ‘mass media’ and ‘crime’. Then, using the television, the newspapers and films as my mass media typologies, I will concurrently critically analyse prevailing opinions on how they impact on public attitude to crime. While the appraisal will evaluate prevailing debates, the conclusion will be a résumé of dialogues developed exclusively within the essay. Based on the Harvard model, the bibliography will alphabetically credit citations made within the discourse.

Definition

Mass media denotes, “the methods and organization used by special social groups to convey messages to large, socially mixed and widely dispersed audiences” Trowler, (2001, p. 1). The television, newspapers, radio, cinema, mobile phones, films etc are mass media instruments employed in encoding and disseminating messages. Crime denotes “an action or omission which constitute an offence and is punishable by law” Pearsall, (1998, p. 434). The Mass media attitude-influencing debate

With television as the typology, Allen, (1994, p. 37) cites the hitherto belief that “the camera never lies” to emphasise the trust or reality that majority of the public attaches to mass media messages. From a semiotic and structural perspective, Robert Allen goes on to emphasise that while mass media information are “partial, motivated, conventional and biased” (p. 38), people simply receive them as ”pure information, as an unmediated signifier”. While this tendency and the lack of media literacy may collude to accord consensus to “the power-wielding ability of the press to instigate public hysteria on crime”, Banks, (2001, p. 17); Trowler, (2001), the correlate between the mass media messages and crime is not only highly contentious but is a factor of a myriad of variables; age, Gunter, (1987); social class, Gray, (1992); gender, Gunter, (1995); race and ethnicity, Gillespie, (1995) and media literacy, Buckingham, (1993b). With television, the newspapers and films as typologies, the medical model perceives the mass media as the syringe, the message as what is injected and the audience as the patient. Accordingly, the influence of the media on our attitudes to crime is a factor of dosage, (the quantity, frequency and extent of exposure to mass media socialisation, Allen, (1994, p. 37); and the resilience, (audience’s selective ability rather than passive attitude to media messages). However, irrespective of our resilience, “prolonged exposure to biased media message will eventually impact on our attitudes to crime.” Lazarsfeld et al., (1948). Some sociologists assert that, “the hypnotic power of the mass media deprives us of the capacity for critical thought.” Marcuse, (1972). This is acute within contemporary techno-globalised society where audiences are incessantly bombarded with crime details or crime-explicit films. Regarding films, the murder of James Bulger was attributed to “re-enactment of scenes from ‘Child’s play 111.” Ford, (1994). Similarly, critics argue that the television, news papers and cinema have socialised audiences into stereotyping crime so that medical conditions like mental illness are being criminalised. For example society is more predisposed to prejudge innocent mental patients culpable solely by reason of their circumstance compared to affluent criminals. Similarly, the allegation that British society is “intrinsically racist”, Donald and Rattansi, (1992, p. 4) is exemplified in media reporting that visibly seem to socialised audiences into criminalising ‘Blackness’. Here, subsequent to a fatal assault, a tabloid caption read, “Chelsea Law-abiding white male lawyer murdered by two black ‘hoodies.’” The Sun, (2007). The resulting public hysteria and outraged evoked was indicative of the extent to which placid readers had been socialised through minds and thoughts manipulation into passive and stereotypical consumers of bias media messages. Here, the media relegated the actual criminal act of murder into insignificance while readers were manipulated into using ‘blackness’ with implications of racism as primary criteria in their evaluation of the crime. Similarly, the Telegraph headline of December 14th 1985; “Black Brixton Looters jailed” Trowler, (2001, p. 210) is typical of mass media attitude manipulation so that ‘blackness’ is perceived as synonymous with criminality. Furthermore, the newspapers and television’s preoccupation with technical efficiency at the expense of empathetic concern have socialised audience into making stars of criminals while crime victims are either negated or re-victimised. Kirsta, (1988, p.105). For example, the social worker was isolated and vilified in the Victoria Climbé trails, thanks to media-audience manipulation. The media’s influence here was to manipulate the audience to scapegoat the less credential social worker as opposed to the learned consultant. As in most criminal investigations, the media became the reporter, prosecutor, judge and executioner while the audience passively consented to the media propaganda. Society’s stereotypical perception of social workers “as indecisive wimps who fail to protect children from death, or as authoritarian bullies who unjustifiably snatch children from their parent” Banks, (2001, p. 17) persist today thanks to media influence. Ultimately, until a herculean revolution is affected to change the way mass media messages are encoded and disseminated, attitudes to crime will always reciprocate and satisfy the mass media’s mind manipulation and socialisation processes.

Appraisal

While conservatives of the Mary Whitehouse school vilify the mass media for encouraging and “desensitizing the audience to crime and violence and other forms of deviance”, Trowler, (2001, p. 112), advocates uphold them not only as the primary means of informing the public but argue that audiences “are complicated filter mechanism that are selective in their interpretation and application of mass media messages. Fiske, (1986). Similarly, while this argument may provide plausible reasons to argue that the selective consumption of media messages serves to mitigate the alleged domineering influence of the mass media on public crime attitudes, Robert Allen (1994, p. 6) stressed that “despite the seemingly self-evident manner in which we are able to make sense of television, that ability is in fact a result of our having learned the convention of television reading.” Furthermore, although Robert Allen, (1994, p.14) says “early mass communication scholars were impressed by broadcasting’s direct, immediate and drastic effects on behaviours and attitudes”,(p. 14), in qualifying his statement, he emphasised that “the media did not tell people what to think so much as they told people what to think about.” (p. 14). Crime-wise, the debate would then be whether the mass media implicitly drives some people into committing crime or does it rather set the agenda for public discourse on crime? If as a result of the latter, mass media audiences are instigated to undertake dialogue as a result thereof, then, this must be indicative of attitudes that are the result of mass media sensitisation about crime, or counter response to media crime representations. Whatever the case, a comprehensive appraisal of the power of the mass media on crime attitude is inherently problematic since this “is an under-research phenomenon” Boyd-Barrett and Newbold, (2001, p. 118) which “operates by conventions rather than by hard-and-fast rules.” Allen, (1994, p. 49). Moreover, McQuail, (1994, p. 327) noted that “there is little agreement on the nature and extent of these assumed effects.” Nonetheless, while it is generally presumed that the mass media influence audience’s attitudes to crime and “that television cultivates people’s beliefs” Gerbner and Larry (1976), counter argument asserts that “an individual’s attitude or predisposition can modify or sometimes completely distort the meaning of a given mass media message” Boyd-Barrett and Newbold, (2001, p. 127). Furthermore, from an entertainment or escapist perspective, it is argued that television “is not supposed to be taken seriously.” Allen, (1994, p. 4). The issue here is the proportion of mass media audience that are objective enough to discern facts from fiction. Nevertheless, the reality with mass media dependency as our primary source of information or entertainment is that, our attitudes to crime will always mirror some of the shortcomings of the media’s encoding and dissemination processes. Bearing in mind the fact that being a capitalist society where profit-making supersedes ethical and moral values, the various attitudes to crime are factors of vested interest as well as one’s social class within the prevailing economic structure. Research-wise the media’s quest to galvanise readership by stressing the scale rather than the true extent of crime “is neither ethically acceptable nor logical.” Ennew, (1996, p. 12).

Conclusion.

In the contemporary techno-globalised world where audiences are not only mass media-dependent for information, Banks, (2001); Trowler, (2001), but are incessantly bombarded with crime minutiae, there is consensus that our attitudes to crime will reciprocate these realities. Banks, (2001); Brand and Price, (2000). However, the extent to which these attitudes are a consequence of media socialisation and manipulation is dependent on a myriad of inter-related variables; age, Gunter, (1987); social class, Gray, (1992); gender, Gunter, (1995); race and ethnicity, Gillespie, (1995) and media literacy, Buckingham, (1993b); There is also consensus that the public’s habitual moral panic and knee-jerk attitudes of indignation, detestation, and sometimes mass hysteria to emotive crime-reporting are usually instigated by sensational reporting “to increase readership rather than transmit facts.) Kirsta, (1988). Nonetheless some critics argue that “the mass media, rather than changing attitudes, serves to confirm those attitudes already held by audience.” Trowler, (2001, p. 64). Furthermore, the apparent media’s influence on crime attitude is mitigated on the assumption that majority of the public are rationally selective in their consumption of media messages. Fiske, (1986). Holistically, “the lack of systematic researches into the exact impact of the mass media on our attitudes to crime”, Boyd-Barrett and Newbold, (2001, p. 118), is colluding with other factors to render it necessary to question the reliability and validity of prevailing opinions. Allen, (1994). Thus, until the relevant mechanism is established to address this deficiency, related analysis will forever be shrouded in relativities?

Bibliography
Allen, R. (1994) Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: television and contemporary criticism 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Banks, S. (2001) Ethics and Values in Social Work. Hampshire: Palgrave.
Boyd-Barrett, O. and Newbold, C. (2001) Approaches to Media: A Reader. Tunbridge Wells: Gray Publishing.
Brand, S. and Price, R. (2000) The Economic and Social Cost of Crime. London: Home Office Research Study. 217.
Buckingham, D. (1993b) Reading Audiences: Young People and the Media. Manchester: UP
Ennew et al, (1996) Children and Prostitution: How Can we Measure and Monitor the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children? Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography. New York: UNICEF.
Fiske, J. (1986) Television: polysemy and popularity, Critical Studies in Mass Communication. Vol, 3.
Ford, M. (1994). Sight and Sound. London: BFI.

Gerbner, G. And Larry, G. (1976) Living with Television: The Violence Profile. Journal of Communication, Vol. 26, No. 2.

Gillespie, M. (1995) Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change. London: Routledge.

Grays, A. (1992) Video Playtime. London: Routledge.

Gunter, B. (1997) Children and the fear of crime. London: Libbey.

Gunter, B. (11995) Television and Gender: Representation. London: John Libbey.
Katz, E. (1979) On Conceptualising Media Effects. Leuven: Catholic University.

Kirsta, A. (1988) Victims: Surviving the aftermath of violent crime. London: Hutchison Ltd.
Klapper, J. T (1960) The Effect of Mass Communication. New York: Free Press.
Lazarsfeld, P. F. Et al. (1948) The People’s Choice. Columbia: Columbia University Press.
Marcuse, H. (1972) The One Dimensional Man. London: Abacus.
McQuail, D. (1994) Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction, 3rd edn. London: Sage.
Pearsall, J. (1998). The New Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Sun, (2007). Chelsea Law-abiding white male lawyer murdered by two black ‘hoodies.’ London: The Sun Newspaper.

Trowler, P. (1998) Investigating Mass Media. London: Collins Educational.

Bibliography: Fiske, J. (1986) Television: polysemy and popularity, Critical Studies in Mass Communication. Vol, 3. Ford, M. (1994). Sight and Sound. London: BFI. Gerbner, G Gillespie, M. (1995) Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change. London: Routledge. Grays, A Gunter, B. (1997) Children and the fear of crime. London: Libbey. Gunter, B. (11995) Television and Gender: Representation. London: John Libbey. Katz, E. (1979) On Conceptualising Media Effects. Leuven: Catholic University. Kirsta, A. (1988) Victims: Surviving the aftermath of violent crime. London: Hutchison Ltd. Klapper, J Lazarsfeld, P. F. Et al. (1948) The People’s Choice. Columbia: Columbia University Press. Marcuse, H. (1972) The One Dimensional Man. London: Abacus. McQuail, D. (1994) Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction, 3rd edn. London: Sage. Pearsall, J. (1998). The New Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The Sun, (2007) Trowler, P. (1998) Investigating Mass Media. London: Collins Educational.