Making the News: If It Bleeds, It Leads
SOCI0067: Crime and the Media Lecture 2Dr. L. Cho, PhDE-mail: [email protected]
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
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
HKU Student Media Usage Survey
Please fill it out!
Theories About Media and Crime
Relationship between media and crime
How do media affect people?
Do the media “cause” crime?
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
Most Common Media
Newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, comics, books, films, billboards, photographs, recordings, telephones, video games, etc.
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
To Become “E-Famous”
Available at: http://www.wftv.com/video/15817921/index.html
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
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.
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
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)
“Deviance is created by the imposition of a particular
definition of behaviour of a particular context”
Stealing Note Paper
Shelves of Supermarket From HKU library printer
Same Act Defined DifferentlySupermarket Arrested Charged with theft
HKU Internal discipline
Social context where the offence and deviance takes place is a central aspect of sociological
explanation
Cross Cultural Communication as Deviance
OK Signal Middle Finger
Thumbs Up Whistling
U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S.
Expresses approval
Offensive gesture
Hitch-hiking or show of approval
When happy
JAPAN KOREA NIGERIA EUROPE
Means you are asking for money
Used for pointing
Rude gesture
Sign of disapproval at public events
Including Sex Work
Not legally defined as crime
However, considered by many, though not all, in Hong Kong as deviant
Why Study Media and Crime?
Media is pervasive
Permeate All Aspects of Our Daily Life
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)
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)
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
Media is an Important Source of Knowledge
Media can create and reflect popular sentiment about crime
and justiceIn turn, influence social policy
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?
Why Study Crime and the Media?
Crime is a basic staple of media
Internationally featured in all mass media forms
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/
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/
Comparison
TV• Crime (14%)
• Accidents (12%)
• Economy (14.7%)
• Politics (13.7%)
• Health and Safety (11%)
Newspapers• Crime (17.3%)
• Accidents (16%)
• Economy (16%)
• Politics (18.7%)
• Health and safety (5.3%)
US Crime Coverage
7.1%
12%
20%
5.8%
9.5%
4.2% 4.7%
Hong Kong Violent Crime Statistics 2003 to 2007
2006 Crime Coverage
Hong Kong Population nearly
7 million Violent Crimes 14,817
HK newspaper coverage of crime: 17.3%
Los Angeles Population nearly
3 million (2,936,101) Violent Crimes 87,940
US newspaper coverage of crime: 4.2%
Los Angeles County Crime Statistics 2006
Why Study Crime and the Media?
Does media give objective and neutral presentation of
reality?
Case Study #1
O.J. Simpson
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.
OJ Simpson June 27, 1994
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.
Break
What is the Relationship Between
Crime and the Media?
Heated public debates since the early 1900s
One Popular View
Media is a primary cause of crime in society
Distinction
Causality X causes Y. Whenever you have X,
you get Y
Correlation Y comes after X and is
possibly connected with it
Direct Effect
Sensational media encourages and accounts
for evil & violence
Implication
Censorship
Other Popular View
Media has little to no effect on crime
No need to censor
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
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
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
Apply Direct Effect Theory to Nude Photo Scandal
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
How to Account for Aggressive Behaviour When Individual Does Not View/Read Media?
Critics of Direct Effect
Violent crime occurred before media became popular
No evidence show that remove violent media means no violence
See shows on tribal societies where there is violence but no T.V.
In Hong Kong
Lots of popular movies and Chinese newspaper coverage show lots of blood & guts
Hong Kong has low incidence of violence, in particular murder.
2006 Crime Coverage
Hong Kong Population nearly
7 million Violent Crimes 14,817
HK newspaper coverage of crime: 17.3%
Growing Frustration from 1960’s
Can’t show how or why people are influenced by the media…
So, changed research direction…
What Does the Media Do to People?
What do people do with the media?
What is the purpose of media in people’s everyday life?
Audience is Not Passive,but Active Agents
Studies of British & American Soap Operas…
For viewers: TV watching is
functional Escapism, tension
release, enhance social interaction, personal identity…
Why Are People Not So Influenced?
Selective exposureSelective perception
Selective retention and recallMedia has few lessons on everyday
life – too removed
Rise of Reception Analysis (1980s)
Media doesn’t “control” individualsUses media as a resource
Select images and meanings that relate to wider experiences
Sociology Perspective: Critical of Direct Effect Approach
Limitations to direct effect / psychological Approach:
Media is not value neutral Media rooted in ideological beliefs Direct effect de-contexualize individual &
collective behaviour Behaviour must be understood in its social
context
Sociology Perspectives
People are active participants in media interpretive process
Functionalist: media is part of the structure and workings of society necessary for survival of society. Media stabilizes society (as oppose to cause change)
Marxist/conflict: Media allied to power structure, agents of political control
Cultural and Media Studies View
Focus less on effects, more on variation of responses to the content as part of broader cultural phenomenon. Focus on normality of media role in people’s lives rather than the dangerous effect.
How do media construct and censor certain behaviours in oppositional terms?
How does it promote moral lessons?
Criminology Perspective
Direct effect: TV retards higher cognitive functions, TV acts as stimuli
Indirect effect: media coverage on sex >>> lax attitude on sex >>> crime
Media part of political process: media pressuring state to “do something” about a problem. Does the public influence media or vice versa?
Criminology Perspective
Rational Choice: media is positive as audience learn about negative aspects of crime (deterrence)
Social Control: media reinforces conventional values (role of media in preventing crime)
Public Perception: media influence perception and fear of crime
Public Pressure: media influence what criminal justice system does
Social (Media) Construction of Reality
Assumption: Knowledge is subjective, variable, socially
based
Constructed Reality
Knowledge(sources of, shared meanings
PersonalExperiences
(direct,Experienced reality,
Fairly limited, butMost influential)
Significant Others
(peers, family,Friends)
Other SocialInstitutions
(schools, unions,church, govAgencies)
Mass Media(TV, movies,
Internet)
Shared symbolically
Collectively shared through language Others experienced is shared What people believe to be true is largely
acquired symbolically rather than actually experienced
We have limited experience, rely on media for information
President Bush
Donald Tseng
Man Walking on the Moon
Media is BIG Business
Driven by profit Content and images
influenced by business motives
Need to present competing claims
American Approach to Media and Crime
Social Constructionism
Competing Constructions
Claims – descriptions, assertions, stereotypes about nature and extent of problem
Claimsmakers – various interest groups who make specific claims, shape problem as they see it, morally, politically and financially driven
Secondary Claimsmakers – news media Ownership – who owns or come to own the
problem Links – linkage of one issue to other problems
Media Filter
What is majority view What is dramatic What will lead to
more business
Happy New Year!
See you in two weeks
Top Related