quizlet flash cards on TERMS

General Info
The effect of the mass media, in particular newspapers/and TV has triggered a considerable amount of debate amongst sociologists. Links to labelling theory, the media sentitises crime (i.e. grabd public attention), amplifies crime (i.e. makes worse) thus creating a social construction of crime, folk devils (trouble makers) and moral panics (public fear of crime/deviance/disorder in society), which is exaggerated by the media.
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The Media as a Cause of Crime
Imitiation (copy cat behaviour), arousal (showing violent imagery), desensitation (repeated viewing of violence), transmitting knowledge of criminal techniques via programmes such as crime Watch, a target for crime (e.g. theft of a plasma screen TV), stimulates the desire for unaffordable goods i.e. advertisements, portrays the police as imcompetent.
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The Fear of Crime
The media exaggerate the extent of violent and unusal crime in addition to the risk of certain social groups such as the elderly. The media often distort the public impression of crime.
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Gerbner
Heavy users of TV (over 4 hours a day) had a higher fear of crime. However, contrastinly, such correlations don 't prove that the media viewing causes crime as people may simply watch TV because they are already afraid of leaving their homes due to crime levels.
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Richard Sparks (1992)
Research into "media effects" ignores the meanings that viewers attach to violence. For example, viewers may attach different SUBJECTIVE meanings to violence in cartoons/horror films/news stories which reflects the Interpretivist view that one can only understand social phenomena if meanings are also understood.
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The Media, Relative Deprivation and Crime
The media bombards us with images of a materialistic 'good life ' of leisure/fun/comsumerism which can generate a sense of relative deprivation/greed particularly amongst the poor and marginalised social groups as a means of confomrity. This consequently leads to the belief that one must conform to the success goals of society which can create more crime as many people often turn to illegitimate means to do so. This relates to Merton 's notion of blocked opportunity and the "Strains" amongst lower social groups (INNOVATION).
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Stan Cohen - Deviancy Amplification and the Meida
Studies the idea of folk devils and moral panics. Contends that the media have an ability to amplify certian forms of deviant behaviour such as youth confrontations and football hooliganism.
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Cohen - The Mods and the Rockers 1964
Mods = distinguished for their music tastes, parka fish tail coats and motor scooters. The rockers = the original bikers and wore leather jackets, motor bikes and listened to rock and roll music! During Easter Sunday of 1964, some isolated incidents of fighting erupted amongst youths in the holiday resort of Clacton and though the fights were neither serious or noteworthy, they resulted in 24 youths being arrested. Coniciding with the harmless events was the journalists who exaggerated and distorted the truth. The mods and rockers received a bad reputation due to media amplification and newspapers contained interviews of the mods and the rockers and discussed thier lifestyles.
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Cohen 2
The British youth was polarised between the mods and rockers and during the sebsequent Bank Holiday, newspaper journalists predicted violent scenes of fighting in other holiday resports. Although the mods and the rockers and other youths turned up in large numbers, the day passed with little trouble. Many people simply wondered around confused yet the media and newspapers still created amplified headlines that suggested excitement and violence.
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Police Reactions to Media Coverage and Fighting
Newspaper coverage (i.e. journalist predictions of blood and violence influenced), the police and courts, anticipation of widespread violence brought reinforcements to combat public disorder if it should occur, the police = sensitised by the media, more people than usual were arrested, not becuase there was more fighting but simply because police were more likely than usual to arrest pople who appeared to fit the negative stereotype of the mod/rocker, sensitisation also influenced cout sentencing (i.e. harsher sentencing to combat the new crime wave), the media exaggerate and distort events, "deviancy amplification" (the term used by Cohen), the youths were labelled as folk devils (trouble makers) due to the distortion of events which created a stereotyped image held by police officers and other members of the public which created a forcible response in the form of a moral panic. Thus, deviancy amplification sparked a public moral panic.
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Crime Waves - mugging, the media and moral panics - Hall et al (1979)
The British media 's adoption of the American term "mugging" during the 1970 's lead to reclassify offences such as theft in the open/bag snatching and assault to give rise to a 'new form of crime ', many national and local newspapers = filled with horror sotries of elderly people being attacked in the streets and violently beaten up. It was also suggested that Britain was well on the way to becoming almost as violent as New York or Chicago (LINK TO SHAW AND MCKAY 'S CONCENTRIC ZONES), there were calls in parlaiment and in the media for a stronger police presence on the streets of Britain and for a touger crackdown on those people who carried out the muggings. Most newspapers defined mugging as black crime implying that muggers were predominantly young black males from nner-city council estates.
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Hall et al 2
Public sensitisation/anxiety generated by the mass media encouraged more reports of muggings to the police, and becuase of the heightened concern, police were more sympathetic and receptive of public reports of muggings which made them more willing to report crimes of that nature (links to the contemporary Jimmy Saville study of today) = NEW CRIME WAVE that demanded tougher policing.
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How does deviancy amplification work?
7 stages: a group of people perform an antisocial act i.e. football hooliganism, media picks up the story and uses it, media produce headlines group is labelled as bad, stories catch peoples interests and thus more papers are sold, media complete to produce the most interesting story, interest and fear stirred up in public moral panic occurs with everyone wishing for new laws, responses.
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Why do the media exaggerate?
Lack of new explanation (Cohen), those in power are trying to distract people from reality (Marxsts such as Hall), police = crackdown enforcing law/order, politicians - usse the media as a bandwagon to try and pass new laws, public - want authority to do something about it.
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McRobbie and Thornton (moral panics = outdated concept)
Frequency of moral panics has increased (no longer noteworthy), context as in the past moral panics would scapegoat a group and create folk devils whereas today there are many diverse viewpoints and values in society, reflexivity as the concept of a moral panic is well known, sometimes groups actually try to create one for their own benefit! Diffiuculty - moral panics are often harder to start because there is less certainty about what is unambiguously 'bad ' today. Rebound - people are wary about starting moral panics because of the possibility of it rebounding on them e.g. John Major 's family values campaign.
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Some recent moral panics
Horse meat, football hooliganism, Jimmy Saville (sex abuse scandals)
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Media a 'Moral Crusaders '
The media have played a part in constructing a moral panic, may then embark upon a 'moral crusade ' against the identified 'folk devils '. The desired outcome is to swell public opinion and for the authorities to embark upon a moral clampdown of deviants.
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Examples of Moral Panics mods and rockers (1960 's), mugging in the 70 'a, HIV/AIDS in the 80 's, Satanic child abuse 80 's, guns in the 90 's/2000 's, male under achievement in education in the 1990 's, Islamic terrorism (2000 's), knife crime (2000 's).
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Global and Cyber Crime
New form of a moral panic, undermines public morality and corrupts the young, large scale development, links to globalisation and increasing technology, fears of cyber crime which Douglas Thomas and Brian Loader (2000) define as computer mediated activities often considered to be illegal - GLOBAL ELECTRONIC NETWORKS.
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Jewkes (2003)
Internet creates opportunities to commit both 'conventional ' crimes such as fraud and 'new crimes using tools ' such as software privacy.
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Wall (2001) - 4 categories of cyber crime
1. Cyber tresspass - crossing boundaries into other 's cyber property i.e. hacking/sabotage/spreading viruses, 2. Cyber-deception/Theft - identity theft ( 'phishing ' - obtaining or bank account details by deception), violation of intellectual property rights such as software privacy/illegal downloading/file-sharing, 3. Cyber Pornography - porn involving minors and opportunities for children to access porn on the Net, 4. Cyber Violence - psychological harm or inciting physical harm, cyber stalking e.g. sending unwanted/threatening/offensive emails, hate crimes against minority groups or bullying by text message etc.
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Swash (2009)
Notes that an estimated 95% of music available online is downloaded illegally.
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Policing Cyber Crime
Difficult due to the size of the Internet and limited police resources and also due to the global nature which poses issues of jurisdiction. Police culture also gives cyber-crime a low priority as it is seem as lacking the excitement of more conventional policing. New forms of technology provide the police with better opportunities for surveillance and control of the population such as CCTV/electronic databases, digital fingerprinting, smart ID cards and internet service providers to monitor email traffic.
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Crime as a Post-modern Spectacle (Kidd-Hewitt and Osborne, 1995)
Media reporting of crime increasingly driven by the need for a 'spectacle ', which are engaging as audiences become repelled by the activities but also fascinated at the same time
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Kooistra and Mahoney (1999)
Argue that media coverage of crime is increasingly a mixture of entertainment and sensationalism (infotainment). There are also many examples of unfair representation in the media.
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Missing White Girl Syndrome
Also known as missing white woman/pretty girl syndrome. It is a term coned to describe the fomr of media hype in which excessive news coverage is devoted to a specific missing white woman/girl and reporting stories of these often lasts for several days/weeks - this displaces reporting on other newsworthy issues i.e. the case of Madeline McCann
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Black Criminality
The media plays up the image of black offenders, muggers, and criminality generally. However, it reports less the fact that the evidence form official statistics suggest that African Carribbean 's and Southern Asians are twice as likely to be victims of crime as the majority of the White population.
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Marxist view on the Media and Crime
Argue that is is hardly suprising that moral panics centre around groups viewed as deviant or threatening to the rich/powerful. Highlight the way the media portrays criminals as working class ignoring white-collar crime/corporate crimes (social control - formal/informal and ideological control via sensitisaiton), Louis Althusser (1971) - ideological state apparatus = the media.
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Jimmy Savile as a Moral Panic ongoing revelations and resignations, classic moral panic for victims, the accused, the law the media and the public. Recurrent focus on children/abuse, pressure on the government to resolve such issue, it is amplified, it isarguably more out of proportion than it needs to be, there have been vulnerable victims who were sexually assaulted and allegded abuses amongst a new paedophile ring involving a large number of other prominent victims, child abuse is always unacceptable and deviant in soicety as it can damage and cause long-term consequences for the victims, causes panic/fear so that there is now harm, scapegoating indiciduals and groups, sexual assault often captures the public imagination, about the trust in public bodies (i.e. the BBC, politicians, health service, police and social workers). People often blame the public bodies that are meant to protect individuals and uphold the highest standards, and in doing so people look at other issues facing society today i.e. increasing gap between the rich/poor, prisons bursting at the seams, child poverty, asylum seekers etc. By focussing on Jimmy Savile, one loses light of the millions of children who die accross the world each year from a lack of clean water and those who grow up suffering from hardship/neglect etc - amplification = a form of distraction.

Links:  Richard Sparks (1992)  Crime Waves - mugging, the media and moral panics - Hall et al (1979) mods and rockers (1960 's), mugging in the 70 'a, HIV/AIDS in the 80 's, Satanic child abuse 80 's, guns in the 90 's/2000 's, male under achievement in education in the 1990 's, Islamic terrorism (2000 's), knife crime (2000 's).  Jewkes (2003)  Wall (2001) - 4 categories of cyber crime  Swash (2009)  Crime as a Post-modern Spectacle (Kidd-Hewitt and Osborne, 1995) Kooistra and Mahoney (1999) Argue that media coverage of crime is increasingly a mixture of entertainment and sensationalism (infotainment)