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Media and Crime - Coggle Diagram
Media and Crime
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Fear of crime
Media exaggerates the amount of violent and unusual crime and exaggerate the risks of certain groups of people becoming its victims. Media may be distorting the public's impression of crime and causing an unrealistic fear of crime.
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Moral Panics
In a moral panic, media identify group as 'folk devil'. This leads to a 'crackdown' on group. As crackdown identifies more deviants, there are calls for even tougher actions, creating deviance amplification spiral. Cohen describes an inventory of what happened between media and mods & rockers:
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Cohen argues media portrayal of events produced deviance amplification by making it seem problem was getting worse. This led to increased control from police which marginalised and stigmatised the mods and rockers. Emphasising differences between 2 groups encouraged a polarisation and created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Moral panics happen at times of social change. Moral panic was a result of boundary crisis, where boundary of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour was becoming unclear.
EV: Assumes that societal reactions disproportionate, but who is to decide what is an acceptable reaction? LR argue the fear of crime is rational. It doesn't answer why the media amplify some problems but not others. In today's society where we are often exposed to shock and horror stories, do we really react with panic to media exaggeration?
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The media, relative deprivation and crime
Lea and Young argue media has disseminated a standardised image of lifestyle, which for those who are unemployed or relying of benefits can't afford therefore accentuating the sense of relative deprivation. Even poorest groups have media access, with images of materialistic 'good life' of leisure, fun and consumer goods as the norm to which they should conform. Merton argues pressure to conform to the norm can cause deviant behaviour when the opportunity to achieve by legitimate means are blocked. Media are instrumental in setting the norm and thus promoting.
Cybercrime
New internet media has created a moral panic and fear over cybercrime. The internet creates wider opportunities to commit both convention crimes and new crimes such as piracy. Hall identifies 4 categories of cybercrime:
Cyber trespass - hacking, sabotage
Cyber deception and theft - identity theft, piracy and illegal downloading/file sharing
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Cyber violence - doing psychological harm or inciting physical harm through actions such as cyber stalking or bullying