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Summary A Level Sociology Crime and Deviance - Crime and the Media
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- AQA
A clear in-depth summary of all content in the crime and media subtopic needed in the AQA Sociology A level for crime and deviance.
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CRIME AND THE MEDIA – MEDIA AS A CAUSE OF CRIME CRIME AND THE MEDIA – MORAL PANICSMEDIA, RELATIVE DEPRIVATION AND CRIME MODS AND ROCKERS
- Refers to the media’s portrayal of ‘normal’ rather than criminal lifestyles - COHEN (folk devils and moral panics) – examined the medias
might also encourage people to commit crime: for example, left realists responses to disturbances between two groups of largely w/c
argue media increases sense of relative deprivation and social exclusion felt teenagers, mods & rockers.
by those marginalised groups who cannot afford these goods. - Mods = smart dress & scooters / Rockers = leather jackets &
motorbikes
CRIME AND THE MEDIA – MEDIA AS A CAUSE OF CRIME - Initial ‘deviance’ was a few scuffles etc however the disorder was
CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY, THE MEDIA AND CRIME relatively minor but the media over-reacted.
- Argues that the media turn crime itself into the commodity that people - EXAGGERATION & DISTORTION = media exaggerated numbers
desire, encouraging audience to consume crime. involved and the extent of the violence and damage, distorted
- HAYWARD AND YOUNG see late modern society as a media-saturated headlines such as ‘Day of Terror by Scooter Gangs’.
society where we are immersed in the ‘mediascape’ – expanding images of - PREDICTION = media regularly assumed and predicted further
crime. blurring distinction between image and reality of crime – no longer conflict and violence would result
distinct or separable - SYMBOLISATION = symbols of mods and rockers, clothes & bikes
o For example, gang attacks are stages and then packages together etc, all negatively labelled and associated with deviance.
as fights – ‘sell’ crime using the media. DEVIANCE AMPLIFICATION SPIRAL
o FENWICK & HAYWARD – ‘crime is packaged and marketed to - COHEN argues the medias portrayal of events produced a
deviance amplification spiral by making it seem as if the problem
young people as romantic, exciting and cool’.
was spreading and getting out of hand.
o Becomes a style to be consumed
- Led to calls for an increased control response from the police,
o Corporations use crime to sell products – brandalism, using moral
producing further marginalised and stigmatisation of the mods and
panics and controversy to market products rockers as deviants.
- Further amplified deviance by defining the two groups and their
CRIME AND THE MEDIA subcultural styles – encouraged polarisation and helped to create
MORAL PANICS a self-fulfilling prophecy of escalating conflict
- One further way the media may cause crime and deviance is through THE WIDER CONTEXT (new criminology – Taylor & Young)
labelling - Cohen puts moral panic into wider context of change in post-war
- Moral entrepreneurs who disapprove of some particular behaviour may use British society = period in which the newfound affluence &
the media to put pressure on the authorities to ‘do something’ about the consumerism of the young appeared to challenge the values of an
alleged problems and if successful results in negative labelling of the older generation
behaviour and perhaps a change in law (YOUNG - marijuana users) - Cohen argues that moral panics often occur at times of social
- Moral panic = an exaggerated over-reaction by society to a perceived change reflecting the anxieties many people feel when accepted
problem – usually driven by the media – where the reaction enlarges the values seem to be undermined – result of a boundary crisis where
problem out of proportion there is uncertainty about where the boundary lay between
o Media identify a group as a folk devil or threat to society values acceptable and unacceptable behaviours.
o Media present group as a negative, stereotypical problem - From a functionalist perspective, moral panics can be seen as
o Moral entrepreneurs condemn the group and its behaviour ways of responding to the sense of anomie or normlessness
- Leads to a ‘crackdown’ on the group created by change, by dramatising the threat in the form of a folk
- However, may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy that amplifies the very devil, the media raises the collective consciousness and reasserts
problem that caused the panic in the first place social controls.
As the crackdown identifies more deviants, there are calls for - HALL argues (neo-Marxist approach) moral panics serve as a
even tougher action, creating a deviance amplification spiral distraction from the crisis of capitalism.
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