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Media and Crime: Exploring the Relationship and Influence

This lecture explores the relationship between media and crime, examining how the media affects people and the potential for media to "cause" crime. It delves into various theories and discusses the impact of different forms of media, including new media. Case studies and examples are presented to illustrate media's role in shaping public perceptions of crime. The lecture also discusses the importance of studying media's influence on crime and its implications for social policy.

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Media and Crime: Exploring the Relationship and Influence

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  1. DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY Making the News: If It Bleeds, It Leads SOCI0067: Crime and the Media Lecture 2 Dr. L. Cho, PhD E-mail: Lifcho@gmail.com

  2. Announcements • Course blog: http://soci0067.wordpress.com/ • Reading packet (around HK$66) can be picked up at the photocopy centre located at the Meng Wah Complex (next to Park n Shop) • Tutorial Sign-up • Keep up with your journal entries

  3. HKU Student Media Usage Survey Please fill it out!

  4. Theories About Media and Crime Relationship between media and crime How do media affect people? Do the media “cause” crime?

  5. What Do We Mean By Media? • Something that carries some kind of communication • Communication involves sending message from one or more senders to one or more receivers

  6. Most Common Media • Newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, comics, books, films, billboards, photographs, recordings, telephones, video games, etc.

  7. Including “New Media” • Media created with the help of modern computer processing power • Computer: internet, xanga, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Tudou, Baidu • Mobile phones • MP3s, etc. • More coverage of “private affairs” with fewer restrictions • Bus Uncle Incident: Available at: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=RSHziqJWYcM

  8. To Become “E-Famous” Available at: http://www.wftv.com/video/15817921/index.html

  9. Recorded Brutal Attack to Post on YouTube • March 20, 2008 • Polk County, Florida • One 16 year old girl attacked by group of girls (14-17 years old) • Treated for concussion, damage to her left eye and left ear, and numerous bruises, • Video taped with the intent to upload on MySpace and YouTube • April 7, 2008 tape released to media • Eight charged with battery and false imprisonment

  10. Demand Stiff Punishments for Web Sites • "I want stiffer punishments for these shock Web sites that entice kids to make these videos so they can be famous on the Internet," -- Patrick (father of the victim) told The Ledger of Lakeland, Fla.

  11. YouTube Ban Video That “Incite Violence” • Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) criticized the site was too open to terrorist groups disseminating militant propaganda. • Videos will be deemed to be "inciting others to violence," • YouTube removed some of the videos that marked with the logos of al-Qaeda • Refused to take down most of the videos on the senator's list • Existing guidelines prohibiting graphic violence and hate speech

  12. What Do We Mean By Crime? • Popularly perceived by the public as “deviant” • Behaviours “legally” deemed as an offense (murder, rape, assault, pick-pocketing, street scams)

  13. “Deviance is created by the imposition of a particular definition of behaviour of a particular context”

  14. Stealing Note Paper Shelves of Supermarket From HKU library printer

  15. Same Act Defined Differently Supermarket HKU Internal discipline • Arrested • Charged with theft

  16. Social context where the offence and deviance takes place is a central aspect of sociological explanation

  17. Cross Cultural Communication as Deviance

  18. Including Sex Work • Not legally defined as crime • However, considered by many, though not all, in Hong Kong as deviant

  19. Why Study Media and Crime? Media is pervasive

  20. Permeate All Aspects of Our Daily Life

  21. Media Usage by Young People in the United States A typical day: • 3:04 hours a day watching TV • 1:44 hours a day listening to music • 1:02 hours a day using a computer • 0:49 hours a day playing video games • 0:43 hours a day reading • 0:32 hours a day watching videos, DVDs • 0:25 hours a day watching movies in a theatre • 0:14 hours a day watching prerecorded TV Total 6.7 hours using media of some form 2005 Kaiser media usage study for young people (ages 8 to 18)

  22. New Media Use • 66% use instant messaging • 64% downloaded music from the internet • 48% streamed a radio station through the internet • 39% have a cell phone • 35% created a personal Web site or Web page • 34% have a DVR such as TiVo in their homes • 18% have an MP3 player • 13% have a handheld device that connects to the Internet 2005 Kaiser media usage study for young people (ages 8 to 18)

  23. An Average American • 9.2 hours using consumer media • 62% households have video game equipment • 50% households have newspaper subscription Homes with children: • 70% own video game system • 18% of teenagers (13-17) read “often” 50% read sometimes, 32% never read • Teenagers spend 2.5 hours on a home computer • 66% of U.S. children have a TV set in their bedroom • Children spend about 28 hours watching TV (twice as much time as they spend in school in a year) Adapted from Popular Culture and the American Child site

  24. Media is an Important Source of Knowledge Media can create and reflect popular sentiment about crime and justice In turn, influence social policy

  25. Understanding Media’s Role in Constructing Our Reality • Nature and priorities of media as a business • How is media driven by organizational needs and/or political beliefs? • How do they accomplish this?

  26. Why Study Crime and the Media? Crime is a basic staple of media Internationally featured in all mass media forms

  27. 2006 Local TV News Coverage (TVB & ATV) • Economy (14.7% of local news): Seasonal economic figures (GDP, inflation, prices, salaries), business environment, government policies, corporate developments, fluctuations in market situation (equity, food supplies, gasoline);Crime (14%): ICAC cases, customs actions of search and seizure, court verdicts and sentences, homicide, fraudulent acts, dead body found, illegal gambling. criminal damages, trafficking of drug, crime investigation, robberies, arson….etc. • Politics (13.7%): 71 rally, the re-emergence of Mrs Anson Chan and Mrs Regina Yip, Government responses to popular pressures for universal suffrage…etc. • Accidents (12%):Fire accidents, car crashes, traffic jams, suicides, casualties due to drug abuses, pedestrian hurt by falling objects from nearby building, disruption of electricity supplies…etc. • Health and Safety (11%): Resumption of supply of live stock from the mainland, impact of drug abuses on health, health issues associated with over-weight children, outbreak of bird flu, safety of elevators in KCRC, the ranking of killing diseases in Hong Kong….etc. Adapted from Mr. To Yiu-ming’s Introduction to Journalism Course at HK Baptist University. Available at: http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~jour/course/1120/

  28. 2006 Local Newspaper Coverage (Apple Daily, Ming Pao, SCMP) • Politics (18.7%) • Crime (17.3) • Accidents (16%) • Economy (16%) • Health and safety (5.3%) Adapted from Mr. To Yiu-ming’s Introduction to Journalism Course at HK Baptist University. Available at: http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~jour/course/1120/

  29. Comparison TV Newspapers Crime (17.3%) Accidents (16%) Economy (16%) Politics (18.7%) Health and safety (5.3%) • Crime (14%) • Accidents (12%) • Economy (14.7%) • Politics (13.7%) • Health and Safety (11%)

  30. US Crime Coverage 20% 12% 9.5% 7.1% 5.8% 4.7% 4.2%

  31. Hong Kong Violent Crime Statistics 2003 to 2007

  32. 2006 Crime Coverage Hong Kong Los Angeles Population nearly 3 million (2,936,101) Violent Crimes 87,940 US newspaper coverage of crime: 4.2% • Population nearly 7 million • Violent Crimes 14,817 HK newspaper coverage of crime: 17.3%

  33. Los Angeles County Crime Statistics 2006

  34. Why Study Crime and the Media? Does media give objective and neutral presentation of reality?

  35. Case Study #1 O.J. Simpson

  36. Most publicized criminal trial in history • June 12, 1994 Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found fatally stabbed outside Brown's Los Angeles apartment • Former American football star and actor • Brought to trial for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman • Acquitted in 1995 after a lengthy trial, the longest jury trial in California history.

  37. OJ Simpson June 27, 1994

  38. Time Magazine Justification • The Time cover made Simpson's face darker, blurrier, and unshaven. • Matt Mahurin, the illustrator at Time Magazine who manipulated the police photo, said he "wanted to make it more artful, more compelling.” • An NBC poll taken in 2004 reported that, although 77% of 1,186 people sampled thought Simpson was guilty, only 27% of blacks in the sample believed so, compared to 87% of whites.

  39. Break

  40. What is the Relationship Between Crime and the Media? Heated public debates since the early 1900s

  41. One Popular View Media is a primary cause of crime in society

  42. Distinction Causality Correlation Y comes after X and is possibly connected with it • X causes Y. • Whenever you have X, you get Y

  43. Direct Effect Sensational media encourages and accounts for evil & violence

  44. Implication Censorship

  45. Other Popular View Media has little to no effect on crime No need to censor

  46. Effects Model (Stimuli-Response Model) • 1920’s Psychologists into behaviourism (view individual behaviour in response to a stimuli) • Period of great social change, immigration & urbanization • Related problems: breakdown of traditional values and family structure • Media seen as positive & powerful to promote change, improving society • People directly affected, absorb and follow what they hear and learn from media • Tend to accept neutrality and objectiveness media • Tend to quantify attitudes, behaviours, feelings, see what they study as “objective” and “real” • Lab test, lab test, lab test

  47. Stanford Study • Bandura et al. (1950) • Children shown film/cartoon with violence • Children left in room to bash “Bobo” dolls • See you tube for re-enactment of Bandura study : http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeE_Ymzc1rE&feature=PlayList&p=DD6880672E8F6D40&playnext=1&index=12

  48. Functionalists Account of Media • Aka “hypodermic syringe model” • Audience is passive • Media “injects” values and ideas to passive receiver, producing direct negative effect on behaviour

  49. Apply Direct Effect Theory to Nude Photo Scandal

  50. Critics of Direct Effect Model • Most of these psychological research conducted in labs under controlled conditions • Fails to account for human interaction • Fails to account for competing messages • Recipients are mechanical and passive • Unable to think for themselves • Reduce behaviour as being due to only one factor when multiple reasons for human action • Measures “immediately response” only rather than “long term” accumulative effects • Lab condition, cannot replicate in real life situation

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