Asses the Relationship Between Media and Crime Essay Example
ASSES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MEDIA AND CRIME ?
The media holds a great deal of power in the portrayal of crime within a society; they have the authoritarian right to manipulate events of crime from their perspectives which is illustrated frequently as being reality without a definite underlying cause, therefore inevitably they influence the publics perspective towards crime and current the social order, the main relationship between the media and the crime is the effect it has towards the members of the society I.e creating a moral panic.
The Media is seen to manufacture crime rather then to discover and portray it in its purest form; there are several processes which are needed to be undertaken before it can be televised or voiced from the media, I.e A journalist is frequently required to find an event of crime which is currently a taboo or a controversial subject and meets the new value criteria, which is designed to catch attention from the public, the event itself is distorted by the journalists who are exaggerating the criminals and focuses on the event rather the underlying causes. Therefore crime shown on mass media can be seen as a socially constructed as it a outcome of social process where stories are cherry picked to attract the viewers in expense of other potentially more important news. Marxists may view this as an act to exploit the general working class people vulnerability with creating false but interesting and attractive stories to develop a profitable market with predominantly working class consumers. However the isolation of a particular crime or trend of deviant events could be seen as an effective approach to tackle and minimise such specific crimes as the government are pressured into creating stronger punishments for the perpetrators and it also raises awareness within society. Richard Ericson et al’s study of Toronto found that 45 to 71 % of quality press and media coverage involved various deviant acts, whilst Williams
The media holds a great deal of power in the portrayal of crime within a society; they have the authoritarian right to manipulate events of crime from their perspectives which is illustrated frequently as being reality without a definite underlying cause, therefore inevitably they influence the publics perspective towards crime and current the social order, the main relationship between the media and the crime is the effect it has towards the members of the society I.e creating a moral panic.
The Media is seen to manufacture crime rather then to discover and portray it in its purest form; there are several processes which are needed to be undertaken before it can be televised or voiced from the media, I.e A journalist is frequently required to find an event of crime which is currently a taboo or a controversial subject and meets the new value criteria, which is designed to catch attention from the public, the event itself is distorted by the journalists who are exaggerating the criminals and focuses on the event rather the underlying causes. Therefore crime shown on mass media can be seen as a socially constructed as it a outcome of social process where stories are cherry picked to attract the viewers in expense of other potentially more important news. Marxists may view this as an act to exploit the general working class people vulnerability with creating false but interesting and attractive stories to develop a profitable market with predominantly working class consumers. However the isolation of a particular crime or trend of deviant events could be seen as an effective approach to tackle and minimise such specific crimes as the government are pressured into creating stronger punishments for the perpetrators and it also raises awareness within society. Richard Ericson et al’s study of Toronto found that 45 to 71 % of quality press and media coverage involved various deviant acts, whilst Williams