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In what ways does the media misrepresent the nature of crime? & Violent crime can be a source of concern, but is it the most frequently occurring type of crime?

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754

Word Count:

759

1. In what ways does the media misrepresent the nature of crime?

There is little doubt media coverage plays an important role in which ways the public perceives issues of crime, law and order. For the most part the public does not get their information from direct contact or experience with crime or the criminal justice system. The public's fascination with crime and justice continues to grow in conjunction with the many changes and developments that have occurred within the media over the past few years, such as the introduction of a 24-hour-news cycle and the rise the internet. For most of the public, knowledge and information about criminal matters comes from the media and the increasing online sources.

The media presents inaccurate information about the most occurring frequent crimes. This misrepresentation of the nature of crime is linked to what the media deems ‘newsworthy’ crime, as well to the fact the media is selective on which crime it chooses to report. Research shows that about 65 percent of Australians rely on commercial television and 63 percent of commercial radio, for their daily source of news (Wood 2005). News media is subjected to bias reporters, editors and producers who deemed selected stories consist of a number of specific ‘news values’. Examples include, Prominence, timeliness and the impact of the stories on audiences. In general, the more prevalent a crime is such, as simple assaults the less likely it will be reported on (Wood 2015)

As the media has an increased dependency on advertising revenue, there has been a push towards programs that attract larger audiences. Thus, in effect has increased sensationalised news crime stories and increased dependence on crime ‘documentaries”. A recent example of this was the four-part crime documentary ‘City of Evil’ which aired on

Australian television channel earlier this month. This documentary enters around Adelaide crimes, where Australia's most bizarre and macabre crimes have taken place giving the city given the unfortunate name ‘City of Evil’. The documentary centered around a collection of some of the most attention-grabbing, shocking and puzzling cases from the past 40 years. From the Bodies in the Barrels case to The Family Murders Case (abc news, 2017). The use of news values particularly the impact on viewers, and the human interest of violent crimes was made prevalent in this crime documentary by channel 9 saw the show's ratings reached average of 441,000 and 64,000 viewers. (The Advertiser 2018)

As with other forms of violence on television, there is concern that reporting of suicides, homicides, and violent criminal events on the news will result in imitation or "Copy Cat" action by some individuals. For example, some studies show that the number of suicide deaths recorded have increased after news reports of suicide (Hassan 1996), particularly where the reports detailed the method used by the victim. While it remains as in direct evidence that consuming violence through media watching causes people to become violent, there is more evidence that have exposure to violent content and crime news from The media may distort the views of the public to the actual prevalence of crime and the chance of being victimised. (Wood 2015)

Additionally, the media misleads society about the nature of crime in relation to crime rates. Data presented by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2015) shows that between the years 2014 and 2015 the number of recorded victims of crime decreased majority of, offences against the person categories, such as robbery. However, these statistics show that there was an increase of property crime, which is not widely reported on in the media. Though the media choses to repeat focus on violent crime offences against at the person categories throughout news bulletins and crime documentaries statistics formula indicated a

3percent decrease between 2014-2015. In addition, these results identified that this was the fourth consecutive year the number of reported homicides had decreased. (Australian Bureau of Stastics)

Despite these statistics the media continues to misrepresent the nature of crime. These misconceptions of the nature of crime presented by the media leads the public to believe false perceptions of crime rates, such as certain crimes are on the rise. Brutal and bizarre murders make for eye-catching headlines. For most of the public, the media is ubiquitous and within easy reach for those to receive their news about local crime. Because of the ever-growing interest of true crime stories by the public the media is driven by this interest to continue with the outlandish reporting of non-prevalent crime for their own profitability.

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018): Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia, 2014. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0~2014~Main %20Features~Homicide%20and%20Related%20Offences~9

Hassan, R. 1996, Social Factors in Suicide in Australia, Trends and Issues No. 52, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra.

Jones, R. & Harmsen, J. (2017, December 15) Australia’s Murder Captial: Why Can’t Adelaide Bury the Myth?. Retrieved October 18, 2018 from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-15/why-cant-adelaide-bury-murderous-capitalreputation/9249142

Iannella, A. (2018, September 11) True Crime TV Doco-Series City of Evil a Ratings Smash Hit. Retrieved October 19, 2018 from https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/confidential/true-crime-tv-docoseries-city-ofevil-a-ratings-smash-hit/news-story/ce3adf6cc0c84d5c591821ed24ef5fb0

Wood, W. (2015). Media and Crime. In Hayes, H & Prenzler, T. (eds) Crime and Criminology, (pp 44) Australia: Australia Group Pty Ltd

2. Violent crime can be a source of concern, but is it the most frequently occurring type of crime?

Violent crime can be a source of concern for the public, however, it is not the most occurring crime in society. The publics concerns over the frequency of violent crimes stems from the media. How the media reports crime is not reflective of crime statistics.

In the media violent crime is portrayed as the most prevalent type of crime in society, however, the reporting of crime by the media is selective and the types of crime which are reported are those deemed to be newsworthy. Consequently, ‘Crimes that dominate the public consciousness and policy debates are not common crimes, but the rarest ones.’ Surette (1994) (Wood (2015)). Violent crime is a more serious concern for a majority of the public compared to property damage or theft (Crime Statistics Australia, AIC 2016). Violent crime consists of five categories. These include, assault, sexual 9assault, robbery, Kidnapping and homicide. Three out of five of these categories including homicide, kidnapping and robbery have either dropped or remained steady in the number of reported victims between the years of 2012 and 2016 (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2016). Despite this, violent crime is still being reported by media organisations as the most frequent and increasing crime in society. This is major factor due to media organisations see violent crimes as more important issue to audiences as they contain a larger quantity of conflict. These values of selected stories draw viewers in and increases profits for these media organisations.

Another trend that has occurred in the past 30 years is the decrease of readership of print articles, and an increase of television media such as sensationalism of crime ‘documentaries’ and the nightly news to provoke public interest in past violent crimes. When people interact with the media, they are often showered with criminal images. It is suggested that this fascination and bombardment of criminal images people experience can lead to a higher fear of crime. Since many of these images are violent or include violence in some way, they can cause the public to over estimate how much crime there is.

The medias misrepresentation on violent crimes and criminals has negative repercussions. The medias influence on society can cause the individuals to develop bias thoughts and feelings towards groups portrayed and targeted in media platforms. There are concerns that these ‘inaccurate reports give a distorted view of the real level of crime in the community’ (ASP, Media Portrayals of Crime, 2018). This could cause labelling of these groups and/or isolation of individuals from the rest of the public through misplace fear of victiminsation.

Media headlines such as ‘Gruesome trail of Killing’ (The Age, 2003) and ‘City of Evil: Who Killed Lina Marciano?’ (News.com.au, 2017), are just a few of the medias headlines that mention the state of violence in Australian society today. They suggest that Australia is succumbing to a torrent of violent crime that is beyond the control of the system of law enforcement. The impact of this type of publicity has helped to embed fear into the public that violent crime such as homicide is on the rise. Homicide rates have in-fact decreased in the past 10 years despite public perceptions of an increase. (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2014).

Evidence of the high levels of public anxiety towards violent crimes have been found evident in opinion polls. In 1986 an opinion poll known as a gallup poll was conducted after the murder of Anita Cobby, found that violent crime was the number one issue for concern for Australians. (The Gallup Method, 1986) The gallup poll also reported that both men and women were equally concerned about violent crime. The state of Tasmania was found to be the most concerned about violent crime and the Australian Captial Territory the least concerned. However, the measure of anxiety towards violent crime differ state to state based on the influence of media reporting on local crime events.

It is evident that a high level of public concern is being expressed in Australia about the level of violent crime, acknowledging the publics concerns are justified. While the media is driven by profit and the publics dependence of it, as their primary source of news it can misrepresent public fear. If the media shifted its focus on violent crime, it may be better served to educate the public on how to be vigilant and protect themselves against victimisation, as well as to inform the public of the effectiveness of law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

References

Australian Institute of Criminology (2018): Crime Facts and Figures 2016. http://crimestats.aic.gov.au/facts_figures/

Australian Psychological Society (2018), Media Portrayals of Crime. Retrieved October 12, 2018 from https://www.psychology.org.au/for-the-public/Psychology-Topics/Tragic-eventscommunity-violence/Media-portrayals-of-crime

Social Science Data Archives. & Australian Public Opinion Polls (The Gallup Method). & Roy Morgan Research Centre. (1989). Australian Gallup polls, survey 114, October, 1955: user's guide for the machine-readable data file. Canberra: Social Science Data Archives, Australian National University

Sutton, C. ‘City of Evil: Who Killed Lina Marcio?. (2018, September 17) Retrieved October 15, 2018 from https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/family-friends/city-of-evil-whokilled-lina-marciano/news-story/51f94bb0778e7f0d3e327b0c2f79fb48

The Age (2013, September 9). Gruesome Trial of Killings. Retrieved October 17, 2018 from https://www.theage.com.au/national/gruesome-trail-of-killing-20030909-gdwb7y.html

Wood, W. (2015). Media and Crime. In Hayes, H & Prenzler, T. (eds) Crime and Criminology, (pp 44) Australia: Australia Group Pty Ltd...