Television portrays fact and fiction when representing crime, the genre of crime has become extremely popular as
the genre continues to grow. Crime Watch is a British TV programme that reconstructs major unsolved crimes, Crime
watch shows an in depth and immersive experience in the case. Crime watch positively influences people to be
interested in the programme as it helps crime watch gain information from the public which is unsolved assisting in
solving the case. On the other hand, Broadchurch is a British crime drama that dramatizes crime rather than being
more informative like crime watch. Broadchurch uses short clips, tense music and slow-motion in order to dramatize
it and make the audience question who may have killed the person. Broadchurch suggests that criminals always get
caught which may be hypocritical. However, this positively influences peoples to have less fear of crime and it shows
that justice does occurs. It is usually positive in terms of raising awareness, but TV can sometimes exaggerate what
has happened, like Broadchurch. Sometimes there can be negative outcomes such as crime which can be
glamourized. This may lead to ‘copycat crime’ where people copy what they see in the media.
News:
Often crime is reported differently in newspapers, most newspapers will use incidents that will grab attention of their
readers for monetisation. Reporters Cohen and Young express that ‘News is not discovered but manufactured’, this
summarises in how newspapers select some stories, but others are rejected. The Sun is a great comparative to how
crime is shown, 30.4% of news in the sun is crime. The Sun is known to pick specific crime stories that can attract
their target audience in order to get monetisation, society who indulge in The Sun newspaper are more likely to be
less aware of other crime in the media as it is abandoned. ‘43% of tabloid readers thought the national crime rate
has increased, compared to 26% of what broadsheet readers think’ this report by the BBC emphasises of tabloids like
Th Sun use sensationalism as it gets them to sell more copies, but the impact on the people reading these reports is
that they believe crime has increased when it’s just been exaggerated. The Sun uses huge text and uses colloquial
and simple language, they do this in order to make the news easier to read by everyone and this simple language can
easily be viewed as inappropriate relating to the story. An example of this is the crime report on the Barcelona
bombings, ‘Barcelona Bastards’ This colloquial language is quite vulgar and represents The Sun as a platform that
focuses on the criminals instead of the victims. Scaremongering is a huge attribute to the Suns newspaper, and in
most tabloid newspapers, stories of crime that spread public fear can be used to newspapers advantages as it means
their news will be viewed more. Here, the news can have a negative impact on society as the use of scaremongering,
sensationalism and infotainment being heavily used which can have a hugely negative affect on how people accept,
process and believe in crime. On the other hand, a broadsheet like The Times is known to be more formal and
trustworthy in its report on crime. The Times respectfully focuses on the victims of the crimes which is more
informative on how crime can affect people, allowing for a greater understanding of what’s going on in the world.
The Times positive approach on handling news converts to a positive impact on society. However, scaremongering
will always be a prominent aspect in all types of news as it is crime that is being reported but The Times for example
uses it in order to help people understand the effects of crimes and how it should be stayed away from committing.
Film:
Films have a huge impact on the way people see crimes and the facts and fiction surrounding it, most commonly
films are seen as creating a false picture of crime like glorifying and normalising it as something exciting to commit.
Wolf of Wall Street is a representation of white-collar crimes in action. Jordan Belfort is the offender of these crimes
and is seen as the hero of the company, while in the background him and his colleagues are committing crimes like
fraud, money laundering, drugs and prostitution. Another offender that’s seen as the hero is Thomas Shelby from the
TV series Peaky Blinders, while The Wolf of Wall Street is a more modern perspective of crime, Peaky Blinders
explores committing crimes in the 20th century. Peaky blinders commit organised crime, and their main aim is for
financial gain to expand their business. The fact that Films show acts of crime as heroism suggests that anyone can
commit crimes perceiving it as something positive, crime is so normalised in film as something entertaining which
can be influential and make it seen easy to commit. Films are a great way to make people aware of crime and the
consequences of being a criminal, allowing for a positive impact. However, it does have a more prominent negative
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