Media and Crime
Media and Crime
The relationship between media and crime is a key area of AQA GCSE Sociology. You need to understand how the media represents crime, whether it causes crime, and the concept of moral panics.
How Does the Media Represent Crime?
Research consistently shows that the media gives a distorted picture of crime:
| Distortion | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Over-represents violent and sexual crime | Murder accounts for less than 1% of recorded crime but dominates news coverage; Ditton and Duffy (1983) found 46% of media crime stories were about violent or sexual crime, though these made up only 3% of recorded crime |
| Over-represents young, white, female victims | Missing white girl syndrome — cases involving white, middle-class, female victims receive disproportionate coverage |
| Exaggerates the risk to certain groups | Elderly people are portrayed as frequent victims but are actually at the lowest risk of most crimes |
| Under-reports corporate and white-collar crime | Tax fraud, health and safety violations and environmental crime rarely make headlines despite causing greater harm |
| Focuses on unusual crimes | Bizarre, dramatic or celebrity-related crimes are over-reported; routine crime is ignored |
| Over-reports youth crime | Young people are disproportionately portrayed as offenders, creating a negative stereotype |
Why Does the Media Distort Crime?
- News values — dramatic, unusual, violent crimes with identifiable victims are more "newsworthy" than routine offences
- Commercial pressure — crime stories attract audiences ("if it bleeds, it leads")
- Media organisations are profit-driven — sensational stories sell newspapers and generate clicks
- Ideological reasons — Marxists argue the media focuses on working-class street crime to divert attention from ruling-class exploitation
Moral Panics
A moral panic occurs when the media exaggerates and sensationalises a social issue, creating disproportionate public fear and an excessive reaction from authorities.
Cohen (1972) — Folk Devils and Moral Panics
Stanley Cohen studied the media reaction to fights between Mods and Rockers at seaside resorts in 1964:
1. Exaggeration and distortion — the media dramatically over-reported the scale of violence and damage
2. Prediction — the media predicted that violence would occur at the next bank holiday, creating expectations
3. Symbolisation — the clothing, hairstyles and music of Mods and Rockers became symbols of deviance
4. Moral entrepreneurs — politicians, police chiefs, judges and editors called for a crackdown
5. Deviancy amplification spiral — increased police presence and media attention led to more arrests (because police were looking for trouble), which generated more media stories, which created more panic — a self-reinforcing cycle
The Deviancy Amplification Spiral
This is the process by which media reporting of deviance creates more deviance:
1. An initial act of deviance occurs
2. The media exaggerates and sensationalises it
3. Public concern grows; moral entrepreneurs demand action
4. Police increase surveillance and arrests in response
5. More arrests create the appearance of a crime wave
6. The media reports on the "growing problem"
7. The cycle intensifies — the original minor issue has been amplified into a major social problem
Examples of Moral Panics
| Moral panic | Period | "Folk devil" |
|---|---|---|
| Mods and Rockers | 1960s | Youth subcultures |
| Mugging | 1970s | Young Black men — Hall et al. (1978) |
| Video nasties | 1980s | Horror films supposedly corrupting children |
| Dangerous dogs | 1990s | Bull terrier breeds and their owners |
| Paedophiles | 2000s | Sex offenders, leading to vigilantism |
| Knife crime | 2010s–present | Urban youth, especially young Black men |
| Social media | Ongoing | Online predators, screen addiction |
Hall et al. (1978) — Policing the Crisis
Stuart Hall applied a Marxist analysis to the 1970s moral panic about "mugging":
- The media created a moral panic about mugging (street robbery) and associated it with young Black men
- This was ideological — it distracted public attention from the real crisis of capitalism (unemployment, inflation, strikes)
- It justified increased policing of Black communities and strengthened state power
- The "mugger" became a folk devil — a scapegoat for deeper social problems
- The moral panic served the interests of the ruling class by dividing the working class along racial lines
Evaluation: powerful analysis of how crime panics can serve political purposes; but may overstate ruling-class conspiracy — editors may simply follow news values rather than a deliberate agenda.
Does the Media Cause Crime?
This is a contested question with evidence on both sides.
Arguments That Media Causes Crime
| Theory | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Imitation / copycat crime | Viewers copy criminal behaviour they see in films, TV or video games; Bandura (1961) — children who watched adults behave aggressively towards a Bobo doll imitated the violence |
| Desensitisation | Repeated exposure to media violence makes people less shocked by real violence and more tolerant of aggression |
| Cultivation | Gerbner (1970) — heavy TV viewers overestimate the amount of crime in society ("mean world syndrome") and become more fearful |
| Glamorisation | Crime and criminals are portrayed as exciting, glamorous or rebellious — attracting imitation (e.g. gang culture in drill music) |
| Relative deprivation | Advertising and social media display wealthy lifestyles; those who cannot afford them feel deprived and may turn to crime — links to Merton's strain theory |
Arguments That Media Does Not Cause Crime
| Counter-argument | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Catharsis | Watching violence may actually release aggressive feelings safely, reducing real-world violence |
| Selective exposure | People who are already inclined towards violence may seek out violent media — the media does not create the tendency |
| Active audience | Interpretivists argue that audiences are not passive — they interpret media messages differently based on their own values, experiences and social context |
| Methodological problems | Lab experiments (like Bandura's) are artificial and may not reflect real-world behaviour; correlation between media consumption and violence does not prove causation |
| Other factors | Poverty, family breakdown, peer pressure, mental health and substance abuse are all stronger predictors of crime than media consumption |
The Newson Report (1994)
Elizabeth Newson argued that video violence (particularly the film Child's Play 3) was linked to the murder of James Bulger in 1993. This led to tighter regulation of video content. However, there was no evidence that the killers had actually watched the film, and most criminologists rejected the direct causal link.
Social Media and Crime
Social media has created new dimensions to the media-crime relationship:
- Cybercrime — online fraud, identity theft, hacking, cyberbullying
- Trolling and online hate crime — targeting individuals or groups
- Sexting and image-based abuse — sharing intimate images without consent
- Radicalisation — extremist groups use social media to recruit
- Live-streaming crime — some offenders broadcast criminal acts
- Surveillance — police use social media to monitor suspects and gather evidence
- Citizen journalism — members of the public record and share footage of police misconduct (e.g. the George Floyd case)
Exam Technique
For a media and crime question, distinguish between media representation of crime (distortion, moral panics) and media as a cause of crime (imitation, desensitisation). Always evaluate — the evidence for a direct causal link between media and crime is weak. Use Cohen's moral panic model by name and apply it to a specific example.