How important is the media presentation of crime?

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ASO05-1                                                                              Stacey Blackwell 99132844

How important is the media presentation of crime?

        The public’s fascination with crime lies at the heart of popular culture and crime occupies a large proportion of space in the public’s discussion and imagination. Crime reports form an integral part of the daily media consumption. Some see the media as a cause of crime, others see it not as a cause but as “an exaggerated public alarm” (Maguire et al 1997.)  

        There are various genres of media that discuss crime. The most obvious are tabloid newspapers and broadsheets, news reports on the television. However crime can also be discussed in academic journals, true crime magazines and books, crime fiction, television, films and music. Tabloids, broadsheets and television news are the most widely available accounts of crime to the general public. One only has to pick up a newspaper of switch on the television to see the state of crime in society today. True crime magazines and books are becoming more and more popular in today’s culture. Television dramas, soap operas, films and music all portray crime through their mediums and help to fuel this public fascination with crime.

        Over the years the media has had to adapt for broad changes that have occurred in patterns of criminality and the responses by the criminal justice system. 25 years ago newspaper reporting of crime was mainly concerned with murder, jewellery thefts and petty crime. It now encompasses terrorism, drugs, rape, fraud, child and sexual abuse, mugging and football hooliganism. George Hollingberry, formerly of ‘The Sun’ suggests that an increase in crime has lead to a change in the reader’s interest. For a story to warrant inclusion in the news the crime must be unusual or bizarre otherwise people would grow tired of hearing about it. A former top reporter at the ‘Daily Express,’ Alfred Draper, comments that “the end of capital punishment may have been enlightening but it knocked the drama out of murder.” Hollingberry adds; “In the early days… murder was a very dramatic affair as one knew this was a capital offence and you were looking for a killer who, when caught, would be hanged. You usually followed the case through, from the investigation, to the trial and the hanging.” Popular newspapers nowadays are more likely to write about a rape story than they would 20 years ago, however these reports generally tend to be sensationalised and titillating, rather than a serious account of the crime. Images and reports of crime are now beginning to become more commonplace and a daily occurrence and therefore the public want to hear about something shocking and different, and the media is there to please.

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        The media have been criticised (especially by the government) for over-representing crime. A study of newspaper reports (cited in Hewitt) shows that 26% of newspaper reports were about murder whereas the official crime statistics were only 0.2%. 3% of reports were on rape; however the figures were only 0.4%. Robbery and assaults were also over represented. However reports of burglary, theft and car theft were under-represented. However it could be seen that as these are now fairly common crimes, the public has lost interest in hearing about it. It has also been found that the media mis-represent the image of ...

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