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Misrepresentation of crime in the media
Misrepresentation of crime in the media
Misrepresentation of crime in the media
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Compare and contrast crime "myths" and "facts." The media plays a huge role in forming people's perceptions of crime. Without the media we would remain ignorant to occurrences outside our direct social groups. The media and especially news coverage therefore provides us with an important point of contact with the rest of society. In evaluating its effect on popular perceptions of crime it becomes important to consider where most of the information comes from and how representative it is on actual criminality. If it takes "facts" (the truth, the actual event, a real thing) or if it is heightened to a crime myth. With a myth being based upon "exaggeration" or heightening of "ordinary" events in life. Crime myths become a convenient mortar to fill gaps in knowledge and to provide answers to question social science either cannot answer or has failed to address. Myths tend to provide the necessary information for the construction of a "social reality of crime (Quinney, 1970)." As crime related issues are debated and re debated, shaped and reshaped in public forms, they become distorted into myth, as largely seen in the mass media. The social construction of myths of crime and criminal justice seems to follow a series of recurrent patterns. These patterns allow for an unprecedented amount of social attention to be focused upon a few isolated criminal events or issues. This attention is promoted by intense, but often brief, mass media coverage of a select problem. Intense social concern of an issue is achieved by a variety of means from the mass media, government, law enforcement officials, interpersonal communications, and the interests of reform groups whom all play major roles in focusing the publics attention on select so... ... middle of paper ... ...ime myths thus begin to take shape. Whether it be through criminal acts being heightened to a crime myth or exaggerating ordinary events in life. Crime myths fill in the gaps to provide answers to questions for the public. Prooving that crime myths and facts can be intertwinned to make a socially accepted answer to crimes across Australia. Bibliography Blumberg, M, Kappeler, V, and Potter, G. 1993, The Mythology and Crime and Criminal Justice, Prospect Heights, I11.: Waveland Press. Daly, Kathleen, Goldsmith, Andrew, and Israel, Mark. 2006, Crime and Justice: A guide to criminology, third addition, Thomson, Lawbook Co. Healey, Justin. 2001, Issues in Society, Crime and Justice, The Spinney Press. Healey, Kaye. 1998, Issues in Society, Youth and Law, The Spinney Press. Williams, Katherine S. 1991, Criminology, Blackstone Press Limited, Great Britain.
As Nils Christie argued, crime is a property of the state (2004). As such, it can be defined by the same systems of ideals which influence the state. Crime statistics, which refer to a category of human acts that society view as deviant, can consequently be argued to be without objectivity (Dorling and Simpson, 1999). The statistics they provide are thus arguably not exact. To a certain extent one could infer they are reflections of society, of those who present the data and most importantly of those who accumulate it. The facts themselves become a socially constructed foundation for social knowledge, which inevitably become subjective. This essay aims to discuss how ideological biases within the Police and to a certain extent the media are reflected in the crime statistics.
Zehr, H. (1990) Changing Lenses: A new focus for Crime and Justice. Herald Press USA.
Schmalleger, Frank, Criminal Justice A Brief Introduction, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson Education Inc. , 2010, Page 387
Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group, frequently a minority group or subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses menace to society. These panics are generally fuelled by the media, although not always caused by, media coverage of social issues… These panics can sometimes lead to mob violence… (newsfilter.co.uk).
Schmalleger, F. (2011). Criminal justice today: An introductory text for the 21st century. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Muncie, J., and Mclaughin, E. (1996) The Problem of Crime. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publication Ltd.
Travis C. Platt, T. W. (2011). Key Ideas in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Thousand Oaks: SAGE publications.
Gardner, T. J., & Anderson, T. M. (2012). Criminal Law (11th Edition ed.). Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning.
Schmalleger, F. (2009). Criminal justice today: an introductory text for the 21st century (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Kappeler, Mark Blumberg and Gary Potter shows the example of twisting the criminal justice system into myths. Within this book, the criminal act has a framework of what society thinks and fits right into it to reduce the impact of a crime. The myths are examined in a criminal perspective; such as ‘majority of missing children are abducted by strangers’, ‘white-collar crimes cause less damage in economic and physically than traditional street crimes’, ‘intravenous drug dealers will not alter their behavior to protect themselves from the AIDS virus’, ‘illegal drugs are so dangerous that legal prohibition is justified’, ‘the American criminal justice system is lenient’, ‘serial killers account for a substantial percentage of all murders annually committed in the United States’, and ‘policing is an extremely dangerous occupation’. However, these myths are explained of a minor criminal act that becomes the basis for the society, which it gives a result that almost none of the crimes are legitimate to receive a punishment. The development of this specific crimes are involved in other’s opinion within the society; either through social media, law enforcement personnel, and government officials. The behavior of each criminal brings out the result of violent crimes are non-existence on the world we live in, therefore, the state of an approach is a functional
Secondly, the mass media of communication are information sources to which the members of modern society widely attend and rely upon. Finally, as a number of researchers have documented, a substantial proportion of crime-related news is purely for entertainment content (Sacco, 1982). As a result of the essential correctness of these assumptions, the conceptualization of public perceptions of crime as, in large part, products of media influence appears to be most reasonable. Within such a framework the role of mass media as distributors of crime content becomes less noticeable. Although individuals generally lack experience with crime, they do not lack experience with their communities. If perceptions of crime are intricately related to more general perceptions of the environment, it is unrealistic to expect that they would cover in any consistent fashion which media consumption or exposure to crime content. In general, it is probable that the importance of the effect exerted by mass media upon perceptions of crime has been exaggerated by promoters of the argument. The relative influence of mass communications in this regard, as compared with, for instance, that of more informal communication processes such as gossip and rumour has been assumed rather than logically deduced or derived from empirical fact
Shelden, R.G., Brown, W.B., Miller, K.S., & Fritzler, R.B. (2008). Crime and criminal justice in american society. Long Grove, Illinosis: Waveland Press, INC.
...it is the advent of television media that have sparked debate over the integrity of reliable news making. Print media was factual, although sometimes sensational, while electronic media made use of the technologies, such as videotapes and live footage to enhance and exaggerate the drama of the event even further. Many research studies have been conducted to show the effects of the media coverage on crime and how it influences the publics of fear of crime. Mass media has perpetuated a notion that crime is on the increase by portraying events and tragedies in the headlines that are sensational. The public buys into that idea, despite statistical accounts that reflect stable or low crime rates. The more stories people read and watch about crime, the more likely they are to think that crime is out of control. Politicians may then enact legal reforms to sooth the public’s outcry for crime control and prevention. As easy as it may be to hold the media accountable for barraging us with images and ideas that affect our views and beliefs, it important that the public take responsibility for the information that we consume. After all, there is always the “off” button on the remote control.
This essay is going to discuss the ways in which the media can shape the perceptions of crime and deviance and how these perceptions can influence certain impressions that are generated.
In the American society criminal activity has become a part of the everyday activity. At any given time an individual can turn on the news and there has been some type of criminal activity that is headlining the news. More often then not it is a violent crime. Thanks to the media and exposure to crime on a regular basis as well as the entertainment industry, and other outlets projecting a certain stereotype of crime, and also criminals, society has developed their own definition of each. Society has also developed many myths or misconceptions about crime itself, and has distorted the realities to fit their mythical beliefs.