Media's Representation of the Nature and Extent of Crime in Britain

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Media's Representation of the Nature and Extent of Crime in Britain

There is continuous debate on the effectiveness of media reporting

with regards to informing the public about crime. The media have

motive, methods by, which they distort information, and evidence of

the affects of their misinforming the public. However the media do

inform the public with regards to problems in our society, without the

media we would know nothing. The public also need to be thought of

when trying to decipher whether the media does in fact misinform them.

There are certain motives, which may suggest that the media do in fact

misinform the public with regards to the nature and extent of crime.

The Marxist ‘mass manipulation’ models suggest that the excess of

crime stories are there as a way to divert attention away from the

real problems in a capitalist society. They see media manipulation and

distortion as a way in, which the upper classes control and extend

their power out over the lower or working classes. Through diverting

attention away from central issues the upper classes are able to

retain their power and the established social hierarchy. ‘The class

which has the means of material production at its disposal has control

at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby,

generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental

production are subject to it’[1]. The Marxist ‘mass manipulation’

model also proposed the idea that the media orchestrate moral panics

in order to legitimise the introduction of greater social control

measures. So Marxist theorists therefore felt that the media

misinforms the public with re...

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Routledge and kegan Paul.

Tierney, J. (1996), Criminology Theory and Context, London: Prentice

Hall.

Williams, K. (1997), Textbook on criminology, 3rd edn., London:

Blackstone Press.

Young, Jock (1974), ‘Mass Media, Drugs and Deviance’, in Paul Rock and

Mary McIntosh (eds), Deviance and Social Control, London: Tavistock.

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[1] Marx & Engels: The German Ideology, cited in Curran et al. (1982:

22).

[2] Soothill and Walby, 1991: 72.

[3] Schlesinger and Tumber 1994: 234-40.

[4] Chibnall, 1977: 102

[5] Box, 1981: in Katherine. S Williams, 1997:51

[6] Smith, 1984: 289.

[7] Katherine S. Williams, 1997: 53.

[8] Gerbner, 1994: 133

[9] Cohen: Folk Devils and Moral Panics: 1972.

[10] Young 1974: 72.

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