explains the impact of the media representations on the public perception of crime. how it causes moral panics, how it changes public concerns and attitudes which leads to different priorities.
1.5 Explain the impact of the media representations on the public perception of crime
Moral panic - The media's representation of crime can in fact cause more crime by creating a
moral panic. This is when the public overreact in a panicky manner because there is a
perceived problem due to exaggerated statistics. Both the level of seriousness of the crime and
how likely it is to become a victim are highly amplified by the media. However, this actually
makes matters worse, by increasing the scale of the problem that caused panic in the first
place. This is demonstrated through Mods and Rockers who were two conflicting groups in
Britain. The media coverage on these two groups sparked a moral panic about British youth,
having the public view them as violent troublemakers. However the media drastically
exaggerated the events that took place, and it wasn't as bad as the media had made it out to
be, for instance there were a total of 24 arrests but newspapers claimed there were 97. The
media can produce a deviance amplification spiral in which the media make the problems seem
out of hand which calls for a stronger response from the police and the courts. Which then
suggests to the public that the mods and rockers are in fact criminals, when in reality the crimes
are not as bad as they are told by the media.
Changing public concerns and attitudes - Vigilanties use social media to advertise the crime that
goes on in the area, things like vandalism and gangs. This leads to local public concern, which
creates more vigilante groups. When these groups post on social media and people share
around their posts it changes their concerns. For example knife crime is now a seriously
reported crime, which raises people concerns as they are now fearful of being stabbed when
about. This may also cause people to avoid people they may stereotype to be knife holders, like
teenage boys, the black community, and those who wear hoodies. Since the Islamic terrorist
attack on 9/11, the media reporting of islams and muslims has been largely negative. This has
contributed to change in public attitudes and to islamophobia in the population as a whole.
Which may explain the drastic rise in hate crime towards muslims because people may now
stereotype muslims as terrorists. This idea that the media injects thoughts, feelings and beliefs
into the audience is known as the hypodermic needle theory.
Perceptions of crime trends - In 2019, 81% of people surveyed said that they believed that in
England and Wales there was an upward trend of crime. People have first hand knowledge on
what happens locally to us, but as for the wider society we rely on the media to tell us what is
going on. However the media and news programmes do not always report all crimes they tend
to focus mainly on the violent crimes, which leads people to believe more crime is occuring.
General perceptions are that crime rates have increased but they are actually at a record low for
England and Wales, this is because more people are reporting crimes they would not have
reported in the past. This perception of believing crime has risen increases people's fear into
becoming a victim which can be caused by the media over reporting certain crimes, such as
violent attacks. As a result females and the elderly believe they are subject to these incidents so
fear becoming a victim, when young boys are most at risk of being attacked. Research does in
fact argue that the high amount of violence in mass media elevates the public's fear of criminal
victimization.
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