Crime and the Media Session 2 PDF

Contemporary Developments in Criminal Law The influence of media on crime and Legislation. Keith Wharton [email protected] Learning Outcomes To consider the impact the media has on people’s perceptions of crime. Reflect on who owns the media in the UK. Consider so...

Contemporary Developments in Criminal Law The influence of media on crime and Legislation. Keith Wharton [email protected] Learning Outcomes To consider the impact the media has on people’s perceptions of crime. Reflect on who owns the media in the UK. Consider some themes that you might use in the assessment. How has media pressure changed law and policy?.  Introduction A consideration of the influence of the media – the ways in which media shape our ideas, values, opinions and behaviour – can be conceptualised both negatively and positively, depending on the perspective adopted. The case of Christopher Jefferies The landlord of Jo Yeates has said he is reaching the point where he can get on with his life again. Christopher Jefferies, who lived in the flat above the Bristol landscape architect, sued several newspapers for their "lurid" coverage of his arrest on suspicion of her murder. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-br istol-15551619 Links to media and crime Those who have attempted to demonstrate a link between media content and crime or deviance have employed numerous theoretical models in order to establish alternative, and frequently oppositional, views, ranging from the idea that the media industry is responsible for much of the crime that blights our society, to the idea that media perform a public service in educating us about crime and thus aid crime prevention. Remember…………media is not just the press. Media can be film/TV Increasingly opinion is formed from social media. Much more than news can be seen…… Freedom of expression v risk of propaganda and lies. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/29/sen-warner-ask s-zuckerberg-to-reconsider-false-political-faceboo k-ads.html Sen. Warner asks Mark Zuckerberg to reconsider Facebook’s policy that allows false political ads (Tue 29th Oct 2019) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-502 43306 Twitter bans all political ads (Thurs Oct 31st 2019) New owner (Musk) believes in full FO Speech = https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/ twitter-hate-speech.html What criminologists say; Jukes. Jukes (2007) analysed how crime news is ‘manufactured’ along ideological lines. Discussed understanding of the ways in which the demands and constraints of news production intertwine with the perceived interests of the target audience to produce a set of organisational ‘news values’. The ways in which the construction of news sets the agenda for public and political debate. Reality and Representation Even the most cursory investigation of crime reporting demonstrates that crime news follows markedly different patterns to both the ‘reality’ of crime and its representation in official statistics. Thus, despite often being described as a ‘window on the world’ or a mirror reflecting ‘real life’, the media might be more accurately thought of as a prism, subtly bending and distorting the view of the world it projects. Stan Cohen: Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers (1972) Chas Critcher Moral Panic Analysis: Past, Present and Future (2008) Madeleine McCann abduction - Initially this was assumed to be a paedophile crime. Eleven-year-old Rhys Jones was shot dead in a pub car park in Liverpool, apparently an innocent victim of a gang-related feud. ‘Binge’ drinking/cannabis might be reclassified as a more serious drug, having been downgraded 3 years before The effects of new technologies on children Immigration - C C of Cambridgeshire stated that her force needed more resources to cope with the problems posed by the recent influx of Eastern European migrants/Convictions for illegal dogfight Other development of press folk devils…. Goode and Ben-Yehuda added five crucial ingredients to moral panics: 1. Increased level of concern regarding the behaviour 2. Amplified animosity to those engaged in the behaviour 3. Widespread consensus that it created a threat. 4. Disproportionate threat associated to the actual threat created by the behaviour 5. and volatility, the moral panic begins and ends quickly. Goode E and Ben-Yehuda N Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance (Oxford 1994) Development continued….. Thompson since added that the key is the creation of concern and hostility. Thompson K Moral Panics (London Routledge 1998) Eg child killer released after 33 years and neighbours killing him www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45296539 BUT there are good examples where moral panic does not occur……….. Jenkins P, ‘Failure to Launch: Why Do Some Social Issues Fail to Detonate Moral Panics?’ (2009) 49 (1) British Journal of Criminology 35 Real danger Chris Greer and Yvonne Jewkes Extremes of Otherness: Media Images of Social Exclusion (2005) 32 (1) Social Justice 20 Still very relevant James Walsh Moral panics by design: The case of terrorism (2016) This research enhances social-scientific treatments of terrorism, broadens the scope of moral panic analysis, and extends understandings of how fear and anxiety are manipulated for political purposes. ‘Human interest’ The media stress the ‘human interest’ angle of a crime story (with first-hand accounts from victims and witnesses, an emphasis on tragedy, sentimentality and so on) and may be primarily designed to appeal to a female readership, while others sensationalise crime news, emphasizing sex and sleaze, but simultaneously adopting a scandalised and prurient tone. News values that shape crime news Threshold Predictability Simplification Individualism Risk Sex Celebrity/high-status persons Proximity Violence Spectacle or graphic imagery Children Conservative ideology and political diversion Newsworthiness Seminal work by Chibnall (1977) argued that newsprint is ‘ordered and controlled’ by specific professional imperatives, which interconnect to support and articulate a newspaper ideology. Amongst these immediacy, novelty and dramatization form the most basic imperatives and emphasise the notions of ‘finding the scoop’ and seizing consumer attention in a process of market driven journalism Most fundamentally, creators of news are driven by a desire to achieve audience response and reaction (Reiner, 2007) Newsworthiness 2 Narratives of violent crime visibly pervade British press and have produced an upward trend in the popularity of crime news reporting, within both quality and popular press (Reiner et al., 2000a; 2000b; Reiner, 2001; 2007; Wiest, 2016). The increasing number of platforms through which the news can be accessed, facilitated by use of the internet, means that crime news is ubiquitous within society (Dowler et al., 2006) Newsworthiness 3 The imperative of conventionalism dictates that the news provides the reader with an interpretation of social ideology, or social convention, whereby contemporary paradigm shifts allow journalists to provide a subjective point of view (Chibnall, 1977). Conventionally, strict impartiality is not required within newspaper rhetoric, and hence exists as a form of clean propaganda– used to circulate ideologies of crime (Chibnall, 1977) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/fb-63464 45/Violence-Wild-West-Britain-seen-69-000 -children-hurt.html Media landscape But in a media landscape where a handful of companies own virtually all of the print, radio and television media in each nation, one could argue that the only recourse is a critical analysis of the mainstream media. Agenda Setting Newspapers exercise power and influence in a number of ways. It is not just that they have a megaphone which lets them dominate the public debate. They also have privileged access to politicians. One of their most powerful forms of influence is the ability to effectively set the political agenda for the other media and more widely, in parliament, the workplace, the kitchen and the pub. If It Bleeds, It Leads News is a money making industry. One that doesn't always make the goal to report the facts accurately. Gone are the days of tuning in to be informed straightforwardly about local and national issues. In truth, watching the news can be a psychologically risky pursuit, which could undermine your mental and physical health. Serani (2008) Serani, D If it bleeds it leads. The clinical implications of fear based Programming in news media (2008) 24 (4) Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis 250-250 Further Media study The Sharp increase in newspapers devoting a large amount of space to crime news and stories occurred during the late 1960s when the average annual proportion of crime stories doubled. (Maguire et al. 2012). There is an argument in academia that fear is engendered by overblow and sensational media reporting serious but untypical crimes (Jewkes, 2011). Selling the news. Many studies have found that media distort the strategic crime picture by selecting specific type of crime, overemphasising levels of crime and failing to provide accurate or the full picture – (Chermak 1998 – Chermak and Chapman 2007 – Greer and Reiner 2012) (Typically 50% of crime stories deal with violence – 10% with property crime.  Searching for the angle…….. Therefore, homicide and violent crime exist to tantalise and captivate society as a form of news media to parallel that of popular entertainment, or ‘infotainment’ Hildebrand and Culhane, 2015) Deviance is the quintessential element of newsworthiness (Reiner et al., 2003). In this oversimplified world view of popular journalism, sufferers of mental illness can be portrayed as potential murderers; asylum seekers as potential terrorists; gun club members become potential spree killers and, most insidiously, children come to be seen as ‘evil monsters’ with no hope of rehabilitation (Greer, 2003) Nicola Edgington. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/new-probe-in-case- of-psychiatric-patient-who-beheaded-woman-a3760316.html Binary oppositions Stories involving crime and criminals are frequently presented within a context that emphasises good versus evil, folk heroes and folk devils, black against white, guilty or innocent, ‘normal’ as opposed to ‘sick’, ‘deviant’ or ‘dangerous’. Arguably resulting in over simplification of cases. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-24388175  The chivalry hypothesis (see Grabe et al., 2006) states that lone female perpetrators are treated more leniently within crime reporting, compared to men. However, this is refuted when women commit crimes defined as ‘out of line’ with womanhood (Grabe et al., 2006). Newspapers draw on two dichotomies of women in crime - victim or villain, good or bad – and those who act against cultural norms are therefore denigrated (Humphries, 2009a; Brooks et al. 2015)  Women who commit crime are further categorised by being “bad, mad, wicked or weak” (Grabe et al., 2006: 140), as they transgress ideologies of femininity, sexuality, and domesticity, often with associations of evil and mythical monsters (Jewkes, 2015). Female perpetrators of crime attract public attention as based on their gender alone (Humphries, 2009b), but also because of their violation of implicit cultural norms and expectations. Both vilified and sensationalised.  Jo, Rose, Myra and Louise Porton, 23, was jailed for life for killing daughters Lexi Draper, three, and Scarlett Vaughan, 16 months, in January and February 2018. Other side to publicity – The ‘Let Down’ Jukes (2011) news reporting frequently encourages the public to see themselves as vigilantes and positions those who are offended against (or who fear being the victims of crime) as vulnerable and isolated, let down by an ineffective social system (Norfolk farmer, Tony Martin, who killed a 16-year-old intruder, being a prime example). In other words, immediate, micro-solutions to crime are sought with little time for reflection or critical analysis. Hero or villain? Consequently, the mediated image of crime is dominated by the figure of the dangerous predator or psychopath, and those who try and protect themselves from being the victims of crime are frequently portrayed as ‘have a go heroes’ Media and fear Distorted crime reporting causes fear (Ditton and Duffy 1983) particularly local, sensational reports. High level of TV also raise fear (Callanan 2012) In UK Crimewatch UK increased fear in one third of its viewers (Dobash et al 1998) This has to be balanced with media worth in alerting the public to offences and offenders. Conclusion Crime is inherently highly newsworthy and is usually ‘novel’ and ‘negative’ in essence. News values not only shape the production of crime news in the 21st century, but they also aid our understanding of why public perceptions about crime are frequently inaccurate, despite media audiences being more sophisticated and better equipped to see through ‘spin’ than ever before. (Jukes 2004) Some balance………What law was eventually changed?. Further reading includes……. Chibnall, S. (Ed.) Law-and-order news: An analysis of crime reporting in the British press. (London: Routledge. 1997) Brookes, M., Wilson, D., Yardley, E., Rahman, M. and Rowe, S. ‘Faceless: High-profile murders and public recognition’, (2015) 11 (1) Crime, Media, Culture 61 Dowler K, Fleming, T and Muzzatti, S. L. ‘Constructing Crime: Media, Crime, and Popular Culture’. 92006) Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 837 Also…… Grabe, M.E., Trager, K.D., Lear, M. and Rauch, J. ‘Gender in crime news: A case study test of the chivalry hypothesis’. (2006) 9 (2) Mass Communication and Society 137 Hildebrand, M. M. and Culhane, S.E.‘Personality characteristics of the female serial murderer.’ (2015) 5 (1)Journal of Criminal Psychology 34 Humphries, D. ‘Introduction: Toward a framework for integrating women, violence, and the media.’ (2009b) in Humphries, D. (ed.) Women, Violence, and the Media. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press 1 Jewkes, Y, Media and Crime (London: SAGE 2015). Also……….. Reiner, R. ‘Media made criminality: the representation of crime in the mass media.’ (2007) in Maguire, M., Morgan, R. and Reiner, R. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 302 Reiner, R., Livingstone, S., and Allen, J. ‘From Law and order to lynch mobs: crime news since the Second World War.’ (2003) in Mason, P. (Ed.), Criminal Visions: media representations of crime and justice. Cullompton: Willan. Reiner, R. Livingstone, S., and Allen, J. ‘Casino Culture: Media and Crime in a Winner- Loser Society.’ (2000a) in Stenson, K. and Sullivan, R. (Eds.) Crime, Risk and Justice, Cullompton: Willan, 175 Also…. Reiner, R. Livingstone, S., and Allen, J. ‘No More Happy Endings? The Media and Popular Concern About Crime Since the Second World War’ (2000b) in Hope, T., and Sparks, R. (Eds.) Crime, Risk and Insecurity, London: Routledge, 107–125. Reiner, R., Livingstone, S., and Allen, J. (2003) ‘From Law and order to lynch mobs: crime news since the Second World War.’ In Mason, P. (Ed.), Criminal Visions: media representations of crime and justice. (Cullompton: Willan) Wiest, J. B. ‘Casting cultural monsters: Representations of serial killers in U.S and U.K. News media’, (2016) 27 (4) Howard Journal of Communications 327 Finally…..you might find useful Greer C, Sex Crime and the Media: Sex offending and the press in a divided society. (Cullompton; Willan 2003) Greer C Ferrell J and Jewkes Y, ‘It’s the image that matters: style, substance and critical scholarship’ (2007) 3(1) Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal 5