The impact of media representations on the public perception of crime
Moral panic
Moral panic is when the public becomes overly panicked due to crimes being exaggerated in
the media. Due to this, the public are led to believe that the risk/threat level of a crime
repeating is higher than it actually is.
One example of a severe case of moral panic was the 1964 Mods and Rockers conflict I n
Brighton. The two social groups engaged in conflict because they were bored, but the
conflict became violent, and this violence was worsened by the media’s portrayal of the
event, which was highly exaggerated. The media kept the panic going, so more people were
fighting, so more people were arrested. There was a total of 97 arrests but only £200 of
public damage.
Leslie Wilkins created the theory of the ‘deviance amplification spiral’ which was produced
by the media. It was the idea that the police attempting to control deviance actually created
more. More deviance leads to more attempt to control, which leads to even mo0re
deviance, and it creates an ongoing spiral of more deviance and control. This can be
worsened by the media’s portrayal of crime and deviance.
Another example of moral panic is Islamophobia. This is the dislike/prejudice towards Islam
or Muslims. As the media frequently reports terrorism (particularly from Muslims), people
become more afraid of it and therefore this leads to increased islamophobia.
Changing public concerns and attitudes
Due to the media’s representation of crime, the public’s concern is always changing to
different types of crimes. Heavily reporting one type of crime will shift the focus of the
public to that crime. Major events can also change the publics concern. As the main
concerns change, the police and government are pressured into changing their priorities.
One example of this was the Manchester terrorist attack in 2017. The severity of the
situation led the government to raise the threat level from severe to critical. Another
example from the media was the increased coverage of knife crime. This caused the
government to be on high alert and led to causes such as the knife amnesty, where people
could hand in their knives and other weapons without punishment.
One very well-known case of this was the case of George Floyd in 2020. Floyd was a black
man killed by a white officer in America on the side of the street. A few people filmed this,
and it quickly spread across many social media platforms and caused a huge uproar and
demand for change. It led to protests and riots in which the police had to intervene, and
they increasingly became violent, causing the public to also become violent. This event also
led to the raised awareness of similar events which had previously gone unnoticed by the
public and media. This all took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, but news of that was
overshadowed by the news of the protests. And therefore, this is another example of
change in public concerns.
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