Lecture 2 - Media and Crime PDF

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Theorizing media and crime...

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LECTURE 2: 3/10/19

Media and Crime: Theorising Media and Crime: Why do we need to understand audiences? -

Different interpretations Potential casual links between interpretations and behaviour Consider relativity Useful means to evaluate theoretical explanations

An overview of theories and their contributions to media and crime: Why is it useful to theorise crime and media?     

Theories can ‘unpack’ the issues Creation of links between ideas and issues Theories shape research and output An overview tracks the development of ideas and important critiques Helps us to assess our own perspective

Media ‘Effects’ Theories: -

Mass society theory Behaviourism Positivism

Marxism, critical criminology and the ‘dominant ideology’ approach:    

Media = power, capitalist institution Hegemony – consent given for actions, not coercion Links with labelling theories and process of criminalisation Critical criminology – Bad News by Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG)

Pluralism, Competition and Ideological Struggle: -

Challenges assumptions about a passive and stratified audience Embodiment of intellectual freedom and diversity Audience is knowledgeable and sceptical Competitive – responses to demand e.g. increase in ‘true crime’ documentaries

Realism and Reception Analysis:  Left realism develops as critic of ‘reductionist’ arguments about crime and ‘romanticising’ working-class offenders

LECTURE 2: 3/10/19

 Reception analysis – research of audiences and influences Late-modernity and Postmodernism:  Reject meta-narratives for ‘all-embracing’ claims about knowledge and truth  Encourages thinking beyond perceptions about structures e.g. groups or institutions  Media cultures based on immediate consumption and sensationalised impact – examples?

Cultural Criminology: Considers: 1. Public fascination with violence and crime 2. The creation of violence and crime media as pleasure or spectacle “In cultural criminology, crime becomes a participatory performance, a ‘carnival’, and the streets become a theatre.” - Jewkes, Media and Crime, p35...