by Pip

Outline and assess the role of the mass media in the social construction of crime and deviance.

phillipasmith2 — 2015-04-29 10:23:03 UTC

Introduction- Social construction is a concept meaning that every society makes rules governing deviant behavior and applies them in different ways, if the same behavior can be seen as deviant in one context but not in another it suggest that deviance is a consequences of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender. Deviance is according to Becker' behavior that people so label' - The media is one way that labels individuals. Criminals are different to non-criminals only when they are publicly labelled as such by a control agency. Many people have there own perception on how a criminal would look like this is because the media socially constructs this image. MacDougall states that ' any given moment billions of simultaneous events over throughout the world ...all of these occurrences are potentially news. They do no become news until some purveyor of news gives an account of them. Some sociologist claim that the media play a major role by defining certain behavior as criminal, defining certain activities as newsworthy and defining certain activities suitable for novels, movies and TV programs. The media projects its ideas of conformity of 'crime waves', 'unnatural behaviour' and 'anti- social behavior . In doing this it creates a shared experience and constructs public perceptions. Schlesinger and Tumbler provide evidence to support this, as they show that in the

2015-04-29 12:13:32 UTC

Evidence has been created to show that this is the case and the media does control the social construction of crime. Schlesinger and Tumbler show how the nature of crime coverage has changed over the years, aqs in the 1960s the focus was on murder, jewellery heists and petty crime, but by the 1990s this had expanded to include drugs, child abuse, mugging, football hooliganism and terrorism. This shows us that the media controls what we see, and certain crimes begin to become more improtant when the media chooses to show us them. Ericson goes on to prove this further by showing that between 45% and 70% of quality newspaper content was deviance and its control, proving that the media is largley focused on crime. IT is also proved that the media tends to exaggerate the true extent of crime as 64.5% of newspaper space focuses on crime, but it is only 6% of the offical police records. Ditton and Duffy continue this by showing that 46% of space is allocated to vilent and sexual crime even though it only made up 3% of the police records. This shows that the media is trying to manipulate the true extent of crime, and as a result are making rare crimes seem regular, which can cause a moral panic.

A moral panic is when the media generates a fear of crime, by exagerating the true extent of it blowing it out of proportion and causing people to panic. There are seven stages to a moral panic, the first one be ing the actual act of the criminal, this could be a mugging. The second step is when it gets noticed by the media, and then they exaggerate the event, they may increase the number of people involved or the seriousness of the event. THirdly, this group or anyone related to the act are stigmitised by the public, which leads to step four, where these people then identify with eachother and increase the likleyhood of deviant behaviour. Step 5 is when the public calls for action to tackle this, and then the police and authorities respond with a heavy hand, this is when the moral panic ends

PARAGRAPH 2

2015-04-30 13:38:44 UTC

This view about Moral Panic can be supported by the Stuart Hall Study on Young Black Muggers. He argued that the media was responsible in causing a moral panic as he saw how the media had distracted people's view about the crisis of Capitalism in the government. In addition this allow the media to cause an increase in Criminal activity because the Young black muggers were being stopped and search for no apparent reason. This then lead to more arrest within London because the people were retaliating against the police as they were fed up of being labelled as a mugger. This shows us that the role of the media in term of Crime is that causes a Moral panic to occur. It's shown in the Stuart Hall study how media are able to exaggerate Criminial activity and be able to blame the minority. This therefore shows that Media is a social construction in terms of Crime and Deviance because it shows how an reaction of the media can cause a belief that '' black young men'' are criminal.

In addition there is more evidence from Asylum Seekers through the way the media has portrayed them negatively. This view can be supported by the Daily Mail who has argued that asylum seekers have contributed to the crime in London and a claim that literally has no foundation. This believe shows how the media uses social construction in terms of Crime because its shows people are stereotyped as being criminals because they're labelled as Criminal. This therefore leads to more Criminal activity because they're more likely to be searched and therefore will become deviant because of the label being given. Furthermore it has been shown through the way the aftermath of 9/11 has lead to more stereotypes on Muslim culture because people are now scapegoating them as being deviant.

evaluation of moral panic

2015-04-30 20:09:22 UTC

the idea of moral panic has been influential within sociology and has been used by writers from a number of different traditions. also it draws attention to the consequances of labelling. another advantage of moral panic is that it analyses the process of becoming deviant as well as it explains the marginal acts of devaince. however, moral panic theory focuses on the consequences of the media exagerration and ignores the initial act of deviance. also some sociologists doubt the assumptions that the concerns identified at the geart of something described as a moral panic are seen as exagerated. Jewkes argues that there can be an over-reading of the extent of panic in media representations. postmodernists argue that the idea of moral panic is outdated.

Paragragh 3

2015-05-06 07:45:09 UTC

A classic example of a moral panic is provided by Cohen in his book 'Folk devils and moral panics'. Cohen reported research on the disorders in 1964 by mods and rockers at British seaside towns, most notably during Easter bank holidays at Clacton. These two sets of people defined themselves by the motorcylces they rode, clothing they wore and music listened to. Their dress sense was different from that of the previous generation and they gained considerable media coverage. On Easter Sunday, 1964, some minor disturbances took place along the sea front that led to a few dozen arrests. Cohen illustrates the extent to which media sensationalisation can have an effec on audiences, including the public, police and the government.

Press coverage of the incident was extreme in its condemnation and completely out of proportion wih what actually took place. Cohen demonstrates that the newspaper accounts of these riots tell stories of horrific terror, chaos and large-scale rioting. Clacton was pictured as being at the total mercy of rival gangs who, through mob behaviour, destroyed property, intimitated the public and fought with each other. Although these images may have become more and more familiar on subsequent more and more familiar on subsequent occasions, they were by no means a true account of the first mods and rockers.