Essay
Unit 1 criminology- 1.5 Explain the of media representation of crime on the public perception of crime
- Module
- Criminology unit 1
- Institution
- WJEC
This is a perfect answer to AC 1.5, for year 12 Criminology students.
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1.5- Explain the Impact of media representation of crime on the publicperception of crime
Moral panic
The media can often play a big part in what individuals and communities hear about
crime, this can cause unneeded stress. Stanley Cohen states that a moral panic is
an “exaggerated, irrational overreaction by society to a perceived problem”. Society
has to create the idea of “folk devil” or threat to societal values. For example the
mods and rockers which consisted of two groups of young working class men, who
also rode motorbikes and had pompadour haircuts. Therefore they were seen as
“folk devils” and the media reports used words such as “battle” to describe the
situation between the mods and rockers. This then caused an exaggerated moral
panic where the public believed there were going to be deaths involved. However,
they met at Clacton sea in 1964 and caused a bit of a skirmish with some minor
property damage, that was it, a lot different from what the media portrayed it to be.
A moral panic can be triggered by three elements: Exaggeration and distortion, this
includes reporting higher numbers involved and the seriousness of the trouble.
Prediction, suggesting that further violence and trouble will occur. Symbolisation, any
stereotypes became negatively labelled, for example biker, jackets and high
hairstyles. Leslie Wilkins argues that the media can produce a deviance amplification
spiral. This is where authorities such as the government attempt to control deviance,
but in reality end up producing more deviance. Using the mods and rockers to
explain deviance amplification, the media made it appear that everything was getting
out of hand, which led to police and courts getting involved. This then increased the
negative labels given to the mods and rockers such as criminals.
Changing public concerns and attitudes
The media has the ability to change how the public perceive or view different groups
of people based on their exaggerated news articles. For example, since 9/11 there
has been a lot more negative publicity of muslims in the media. This could be linked
to a rise in Islamophobia. Paul Baker et al analysed 143 million words of British
newspapers articles. They found Islam and muslims were often reported using words
such as threat, terrorist, extremeist and sexist. They also found that newspapers
often used police mugshots to portray muslims. Stories focusing on extremism
increased over time, whereas stories focusing on attacks on muslims decreased.
Therefore the media portrays muslims to be “villains'' and only focus on the bad that
a small minority of their community has committed. This then changes the public's
attitudes towards muslims and people enhance prejudiced views that all muslims are
bad people.
Perception of crime trends
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