Topic 2 - (Student) Media and Crime

DSS20023Criminology and Criminal Justice

Topic 2 – Media and Crime

Field Trip

• The field trip for Semester B has been organised• All students will attend a field trip to one of two

Hong Kong correctional institutions• Attendance at one of the field trips is compulsory• The maximum number of students per field trip is 28• The details are as follows:

2 March 2012 - Lai King Correctional Institution9 March 2012 - Cape Collinson Correctional Institution

Please check Blackboard for further details

Lecture Outline

• Introduction• Media Representations of Crime– Accuracy and Inaccuracy– Impact of Distortions of Crime– Fear of Crime– Moral Panic

• Media violence and violent behaviour

What is the Connection Between Media and Crime

• Newspapers• TV news• Movies• TV dramas• Video games• Internet

Lecture Objectives

By the end of this lecture, students should be able to:1. Discuss the impact of media distortions of

crime2. Comment on the media’s role in increasing

the fear of crime3. Describe examples of moral panics in Hong

Kong and elsewhere4. Analyse the role the media may play in

causing crime

Perceptions of Crime

• Studies suggest that approximately 90% of people will never be the victim of a serious crime

• Most people have little or no direct contact with Criminal Justice professionals or systems– Police– Legislature– Courts– Prisons

• People still have strong ideas about crime including– Crime trends– Dangerous neighbourhoods– Likely offenders– Appropriate punishment

Perceptions of Crime

• Studies in the US suggest that the media is the primary or only source of crime information for 95% of people

• Sources of information include– Television news– Newspapers and other news sources– Fictional sources– Internet sources

• The overwhelming majority of people’s knowledge of crime is from the media, not from direct experience

• How accurate is the information the media provides?

Media Representations of Crime

• According to the Centre for Media and Public Affairs, crime is the most commonly featured topic on the evening news in the United States

• Between 1993 and 2011 about 1 out of 7 stories on the news has been about crime

• The amount of crime reported in newspapers and on television is unrelated to actual changes in crime rates (Potter & Kappeler, 1998)

• Not all crimes are equally likely to be reported in the media

• Due to media representations, most people hold inaccurate perceptions of crime

Media Representations of Crime

Chermak (1995) suggests that the following criteria determine whether a crime is reported in the media:1. The nature of the offence2. Demographic factors of the victim3. Demographic factors of the offender4. The uniqueness of the event5. Individual crime or series of crime• The crimes most likely to be reported are

murder, sexual assault, serious assault and terrorism

• White-collar crime, theft and burglary are much less likely to be reported

Media Representations: Violent Crime

• According to official crime statistics in Hong Kong and the US, 60-80% of crimes are property crimes

• Violent crimes are 4 times more likely to be reported in the media than property crimes“If it bleeds, it leads”

• Homicide is the most widely reported of all crimes• Up to 26% of all news stories focus on murder but

murder makes up less than 1% of all recorded crime

• The most unusual or violent murders receive the most news coverage (Robinson, 2011)

Media Representations: Violent Crime

• Murders are more likely to be covered when– Victims were female– Victims were young (under 15) or old (over 65)– Victims were wealthy – Victims had a high level of education– There were multiple victims– The murderer was a stranger

• Hierarchy of victimisation• The most common type of murder involves young

male victims and perpetrators

Media Representations: Sex Crimes

• Reporting of sex crimes has dramatically increased in the last 2 decards

• Horowitz (2007) reported that the total number of stories about sex offenders in the United States increased from 536 in 1991 to 15,538 in 2006

• Statistics indicate that the rate of sexual crimes actually declined in this same period

• Crimes are more likely to be reported when– The perpetrator is a stranger– The victim is young – The victim is female

Media Construction of Crime

• Robinson (2011) argues that by focusing on some types of crime over others, the media “construct” the typical view of crime

• The public becomes most concerned with the crimes they have the least chance of being victimised by

• The focus of the media is on the unusual or unique, not on the typical

• Robinson (2011) concludes that the media is responsible for popular misconceptions of crime

Fear Of Crime

Numerous criminologists have suggested that media images of crime can increase fear of crime. According to this theory:

• Heavy consumption of media distorts audience beliefs

• The greater the exposure to the media, the more likely one’s beliefs will match media portrayals

• The media depicts a world with high levels of crime committed randomly by strangers

• Repeated viewing of the media will increase fear of crime

Fear Of Crime

• Numerous studies have reported a link between media and fear of crime

• Chicoros et al. (1997) reported that frequency of exposure to television and radio news is associated with fear of crime

• Weitzer and Kubrin (2004) reported that people who rely on the television for most of their news were more fearful of crime

• Dowler (2003) reported that people who regularly watch crime shows and read crime news in newspapers are more likely to fear crime

Fear Of Crime

Heavy viewing of television is associated with:• Increased fear of crime• Overestimation of the likelihood of becoming a

victim of crime• Belief that one’s neighbourhood is unsafe• Belief that crime rates are increasing• Support for harsh punishments• Reduced critical thinking ability

However, what is the direction of causation?

Moral Panics

• On Easter Sunday 1964 the town of Clacton in England was crowded with young people

• A rumour spread through the crowd that a bartender had refused to serve several young people

• A fight broke out and the youths began protesting• Motorcycles were raced up and down the streets• A gun was fired into the air and several windows

were smashed• The total damage was about £500 (equivalent to

about HK$95,000 today

Moral Panics

• The police overreacted and arrested about 100 young people

• The next day the incident was the lead story in every major newspaper“Day of Terror“Youngsters Beat Up Town

• The international media reported various theories of the causes of “mob violence”

• Politicians were pressured to respond to the “youth violence problem”

Moral Panics

The idea of “moral panics” was first proposed by Stanley Cohen. Cohen argued in a moral panic:

1. An episode, person, group or behaviour emerges and is defined as a threat to society’s values

2. Its nature is presented in an exaggerated and stereotypical way by the media

3. Politicians, religious leaders, the media and others argue that a moral crisis has emerged using “narrative chains of disaster”

4. Solutions are proposed and enacted5. Sometimes the crisis passes fairly quickly, at other

times permanent changes are left behind

Moral Panics

Examples of moral panics include

• Fear of school shootings after the Columbine massacre in the United States in 1999

• The reaction to teenage drug use in Hong Kong in 2007-2009

Media Violence and Violent Behaviour

• Does violence in the media lead to violent behaviour?

• Before the average American child completes primary school they will have witnessed more than 8,000 TV murders

• The average 18 year old will have witnessed 200,000 acts of violence on television

• Adolescents aged 11-14 view horror movies at a higher rate than any other age group

• Children aged 8-18 spend more time on computers and television than any activity except sleeping


• The Social Observational Learning perspective argues that a person’s immediate social environment affects how and what they learn

Bo Bo Doll Study (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961):• Preschool boys & girls• Randomly assigned to:

– adult interacting with a Bobo Doll in a civil manner– adult interacting with a Bobo Doll in an aggressive

manner • All children allowed to play with toys• Interrupted half-way through to create frustration• Taken to new room with Bobo Doll• Results?


• Numerous anecdotal cases link media and violence– John Hinckley– James Bulger case– Columbine shooting

• More than 1,000 studies since 1950 have also found a correlation between watching violent movies/TV with aggressive behaviour

• Murray (2008) suggests that media violence is related to both short-term and long-term increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behaviours


• Children who play violent video games are more likely to behave violently towards their peers

• Children who watch more than an hour of TV per day have an increased risk of assaults, fights robbery and other acts of aggression as adults because:– Media violence provides scripts that children

store in memory leading to changes in attitudes– Children learn from what they observe– People who watch TV violence come to view it

as socially acceptable


• A different explanation is that individuals already prone to violence seek out violent media

• Millions of people watch violence in the media without ever engaging in violent acts themselves

• Crime rates have steadily declined in recent years despite increasing violence in– Movies– Television dramas and Reality TV– Video Games– Internet

• There is no evidence that places with more violent TV or higher viewing rates have higher rates of violence


• Does violence affect some people not others?• Comstrock (2008) suggests that the following

factors increase the effects of violent media – Predisposition for aggressive or antisocial

behaviour– Rigid or indifferent parenting– Poor social relationships– Psychological problems

Homework

• Between now and tutorial 2, find an example of crime depicted in the media

• It can come from newspapers, television or other

• Bring the example to Tutorial 2• Analyse the way crime is depicted

using some of the concept’s from today’s lecture

Documents

Topic 2 - (Student) Media and Crime