Media Influence On Crime

The media has a colossal effect on our life and how we portray crime. The media shapes our understanding of crime and criminals. The criminals are usually depicted as deviants or folk devils. Moral panics could cause there to be a misunderstanding or misinterpretation which could create a hostile environment. The media portrays gangs such as Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs and MS-13 as evil doers and folk devils. MS-13 is a gang in the United States of America and Central America. Its origins are from El Salvador. It started out as a small gang but now it has grown into a massive organization.
The media has an enormous say in how we portray crime. Steeves and Milford (2015) state that active audiences not only receive information but instead they are involved in making sense of the information. Problem frame is story that is unusual which is easily
in late 1990s there was moral panic that started after the stabbing of a fourteen-year-old schoolboy (Poynting, Noble & Tabar, 2001). The news channels were linking the killing to racially motivated gangsters. It was Lebanese immigrants that were being framed for the crime. This in turn caused the police to conduct “zero tolerance policing and a campaign of stop and search” of Lebanese background individuals (Poynting, Noble & Tabar, 2001). The gang members were shown as folk devils by the media. In the article The Enemy Within: The Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Moral Panic by Katz, K. it is stated that “The image of outlaw bikers created by this press coverage was almost entirely negative, presenting the bikers as savage monsters who presented the gravest threats to civilized society” (Katz, 2011, p.234). This image that is made by the media makes them look like freaks. Shootings and deaths by the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs cause there to be moral panics and the gangs to be perceived as folk