Representation Of Crime In The Media

The media today is often taken for granted; as people don’t realize the dominance the media source holds in the modern world. Through media sources such as newspaper, TV and social media crime could be easily spread through out the world within seconds. As a result of this, humans understanding of crime and crime control are largely relied upon the media as evidently most people will not be in those serious criminal situations. The media however takes advantage of this situation by exaggerating crime scenes and focusing on particular crimes to make the public fear. Particular groups in the media are stereotyped to an extent where the public foresees then as ‘dangerous’. As a consequence, a change in the public’s perception of crime has forced

the government to alternate their policies in order to resolve this fear of the public.
Crime today is reported in a fictional manner, where this makes crime much more dramatic compared to reality to attract consumer’s attention.

When reporting crime events the media focus only on the negative scenarios that can impact the society, these events are to be know as “newsworthy” (Hall, 1978). Newsworthy crime news is formed through the selective approach taken by the editors where only the main idea of the topic is likely to be reproduced in the media. This is due to crime is not an open event as witnesses are limited hence the selective approach allows the editor to only report the thrilling parts of the crime. (Stuart Hall, 1978: p.53) quoted “‘News’ is the end-product of a complex proves which begins with a systematic sorting and selecting of events and topics according to a socially constructed set of categories”. As a result, this approach has formed bias opinions towards crime reporting as it’s presented in the editor’s point of view (Hall, 1978). The media hence only targets crime with events that is unexpected and events that’s viewed as out of the norm compared to the majority of the society. Alternatively, this changes the view of audiences as they view the society as a ‘problematic reality’ (Hall, 1978). The majority of world is therefore mislead by the fictional reporting of crime as many consumers

believe that crime rates is still increasing. However, this is not the case as statistic of homicide and kidnapping has dropped below 5 per 100,000 population from 1996 -2012. The rate of robbery has dropped from 86 per 100,00 in 2007 to 58 per 100,00 in 2012. Most importantly victimization for homicide has never exceeded 1 per 100,000 since 2007 (AIOC, 2012). Fear is thus induced into the public view on crime in the society as well as moral panic is generated. This is where the public (especially the elder peoples) fears to confront with the society due to endless criminal activities been reported. However, statistics shows otherwise, where the sixty-five plus category have the lowest rate of victimization (AIOC, 2012). Individual hence are uneducated, ignorant, lacks individuality and prone to violence as Mass Society Theory explains. Where most individual are unfamiliar with crime cases hence the media takes advantage of this situation to induce fear in order to create newsworthy contents (Jewkes, 2010). Through this the government have no choice but to increase security in the yearly budget. In 2015, the government is planning to invest about $450 million on national security to ensure that majority of the population gains their sense of security (Budget.gov.au, 2015).
In relation, when the media reports crime it has a central focus towards ‘violence’ where in the television; social media and newspaper violence based crimes are always the headlines.

This demonstrates that the media obviously over represents in violent crimes such as street crimes compared with other crimes such as property crimes (Moston, 2012). The media use this method to report crime in order to heighten the impact of crime and to gain the mass audience’s attention, which alternatively will result in more sales for media products. This approach is known as ‘postmodernism’ where the media report crime on the notion of ‘entertainment’ for consumers. Postmodernism approach rejects the causes and consequences of crime but instead focuses on impacts to the society to create fear within the community (Jewkes, 2010). Hence lead to crime wave reporting on issues like assaults, homicide and street crimes to allow for attention grabbing headlines providing maximum entertainment to consumers. Crime wave increases the public’s awareness of particular crimes due to extensive media coverage provided for crimes revolving around violence (White and Perrrone, 2015). As a result, this has lead to moral panic where the media coverage influence the public’s perception in believing that they are in physical threat from violent crimes. This is prime example of the media using discretionary powers to insert values and dominant interests into the community. Criminologist Gramsci developed

Marist’s theory to incorporate term ‘hegemony’ where he explains the media is a capital with extensive power in shaping what crime is to the public and classifies certain behaviors as “deviant” (Jewkes, 2010). As a case study, the mass media focused on the issue of ‘king hit’ in Kings Cross at one stage where this generated moral panic and public distress across all of Australia. However, as Premier O’Farrell stated (in McClintock, 2014: p.1) “since 2008 violence, both the alcohol-fuelled and regular unleaded varieties in Kings Cross are down by more than 25%.” Through crime wave reporting the media influence the public to disregard facts and statistics on crime. As a result the government decided to introduce the mandatory minimum sentencing for on punch laws, which is 10 years minimum for the killer (Berg, 2014). The media’s over representation of this issues has lead to new laws being introduced as well as new policies in alcohol venues such as 1.30am lockout, 3am last drink, no alcohol sale after 10pm and additional fines if fail to breach with those terms (nsw.gov, 2014).
Further, the media use the technique of framing to polish their reputation as well as to keep the audiences entertained as the same time. In (White and Perrone, 2015, P.42) Ericson et al stated “ 90% of crime stories were presented in the absence of substantiating evidence”. This quote proves that media uses false imagery to shape the public’s perception of crime itself and crime control. This is explained though pluralism theory where through deregulation from the state it has opened up many competition between media institutions. This had lead to greater reporting of shocking and unique events with minimal evidence to allow for greater profit margins between media competitions (Jewkes, 2010). Crime itself thus is represented as negative, law breaking, violent and stereotyped groups. Whereas crime control are portrayed using police as the main figure to solve all society’s problems where they are often a connotation for ‘heroes’ in the eyes of media (White and Perrrone, 2015). The police under the media are consistently reported in a positive manner where the purpose of this bond between the two parties is to decrease fear of crime as well as to drive down crime (NSW Police, 2009).
Stereotypes are formed within the human perception when the media makes connection between crime and particular groups in the society (Gliens, 1999). The term “folk devils” is used to describe the groups of people that are blamed for crimes by the media. The way the media portrays certain groups has lead to on going moral panic where groups such as ‘young’, ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Arab’ are all perceived to be ‘dangerous’ due to the attention the media has been giving them (White and Perrone, 2015). The public hence fear these type of groups as they feel they are threaten to be living in the save environment as them. The media displays the young people’s behavior as irresponsible, anti-social, gang related and illegal consumers of drugs and alcohol. Despite, only a minority of young people commits to these crimes unfortunately it’s the media that plays the role in shaping the mass audience’s attitude. As a result of folks devil been labeled within the youth, it has lead to youth suicide, homelessness and unemployment (White and Perrone, 2015). In 2008, the Australia Government introduced the P plate Law where it’s a safety strategy to pertain youth drivers from dangerous actions such as drink driving and speeding reported by the media (Hutchinson legal, 2012).
Undoubtedly, Indigenous people are major targets of the media as they are accounted to be drunks, criminals, protestors and victims in the society. This intensive reporting of the media has created racial stereotype where the public as well as the police often perceive Indigenous people as a problematic group. This type of alienation towards the Indigenous could be explained by the labeling theory. The media plays a dominant role in labeling the Indigenous to particular crimes as a result Indigenous populations are view as ‘criminals’ thus leading to further punishments by the state (Jewkes, 2010). Most crime reporting sources have established a ‘them’ and ‘us’ (indigenous vs non-indigenous) mentality were Indigenous people are socially excluded (Korff, 2015). This has lead to the over-policing targeting Indigenous groups in high Indigenous residencies areas such as Redfern. The media as a result, has imprinted a bias view towards the Indigenous hence for the over-representation of Aboriginal people in prisons today. Statistic has shown significant over representation of Aboriginal prisoners where they account for more than 28% of Australia’s prison population (Korff, 2015). A survey was conducted on “Aboriginal Health” published by the media over the last 12 month (350 participants), where 75% were reported to be negative articles relating to negative clichés that are bias, ignorant and misunderstanding toward the Indigenous. The media’s influence on the government is evidence through the increasing police power in areas of high working class and Indigenous people to separate them from the rest of the community to give the non-indigenous residence ‘security/peace’.
In conclusion, the media today has extraordinary powers in terms of how crime is reported. The media can easily manipulate the public’s perception, attitude and mindset over particular criminals in the society. Due to the dominance of media in today’s world messages can be sent within seconds in reality. As a result through exaggeration, focusing on violent crimes and targeting groups of criminals will lead to mass public anxiety. The government thus has no choice but to intervene with policies to create a balanced society.
In evaluation, the media definitely impacts crimes news in a negative fashion. This is due to multiple media companies trying to obtain the market leader position they only report crime news according to the interest of the consumers. This has lead to misinterpretation of crime within the public as well as crime been ignored. E.g. white-collar crimes aren’t reported because it doesn’t get nearly enough attention compared to rape, assaults and street crimes. Further, the government policies introduced is inefficient as media reporting mostly influence them, where the government alters policies to repair damaged public perceptions caused by the media. Overall, the government should further intervene in the media today and introduces new boundaries in media to reduce fictional crime stories.