WJEC Criminology (1.5) Media representations of crime and the impact on the public's perception.
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Criminology unit 1
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WJEC
This document is a detailed answer to outcome 1.5. It is a full answer to the outcome it provides lots of reasons and different perspectives to crimes as well as case studies and theories. Recommended for year 1s studying criminology.
1.5
One way media has an impact on public perceptions is by moral panics. Moral panic
is an exaggerated, irrational reaction by society to a perceived problem. For example
the 2011 London riots after the killing of Mark Duggan people started to protest
because he was shot by an officer. This had an impact on people as a police officer
just shot him and this might create a belief in the public that it was unfair for him to
die just because he was a criminal. however , it may also cause people to change
their perspective of police and how they solve cases. This then could lead to further
issues like people not reporting crimes because they are scared of the police or they
might think the police might just make things worse because of this one case.
Another example of a moral panic is Stanley Cohen suggested that in the 60’s the
two subcultures mods and rockers were a folk devil. They were described as a folk
devil because media coverage demonstrated the conflict out of hand between the
two groups which made it seem like the police were not enough and increased the
stigmatisation of the two groups and made them appear as criminals. According to
Leslie Wilkins the media encouraged identification with one of the two groups, this
then created a self- fulfilling prophecy.
Another way in which the media had an impact on public perceptions is by news
values. Surrette argued that the journalists used news values to decide whether a
story is good enough to be mentioned or published in a paper. He said that if the
news could fit into these categories like violence,risk,simplification and dramatisation
then they were more likely to be used. This then had an impact on the public as the
‘news’ that were published could lead people to move away if for example a
newspapers in a local area only published certain types of articles it could lead
people to think that there are a lot of criminals in the area. This then means they
could have false beliefs or fear if the crimes they report are too extreme and
unrealistic. An example of a newspaper title is ‘rising youth crime reflects wider
societal problems’ the title could cause people to think that young people are
becoming more popular in the stereotypes of committing crimes like drinking under
age or conforming to anti social behaviour. This then creates a schema for other
people to believe that this can’t be changed and can create the public to perceive
young people in a certain way.
Stereotyping of criminals can also cause them to behave in a way so they meet the
standards of ‘criminals’ or just the overall stereotypes of a crime like fraud: someone
who would commit fraud would be a tall male wearing a suit. Paul Baker et al
demonstrated that the way people view Muslims and Islam is negative. They found
that Islam/ Muslims were linked with the words denoting to violence. They also used
the phrase ‘ the muslim community’ to make the public see them as a homogenous
group and to seperate them from everyone else who is not Muslim , they also used
the term ‘othering’ to seperate them. This can impact people to have false
information as Muslims and Islam are like any other people and they are not
threatening and this influences the public to then discriminate against them just
because some newspapers stated those words with Islam and Muslims. It also
creates even more fixed stereotypes for the public as they may then start to see
people who belong to the categories of Islam and Muslim as people who they should
fear. This could lead the Muslim community to become folk devils.
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