MEDIA, FEAR OF CRIME, PUNITIVENESS

Media shapes our perceptions of what is considered crime.

Limitations and abuse of statistics: media portrays criminal as
animalistic. Media has to make story more dramatic; ‘if it bleeds, it
leads’.
Primary source of information: social media
Media representation creates unrealistic expectation of criminal
investigations, eg. CSI. Fictional media misleads the public about
forensic field.
Media can also help create social movements to assist in the policing of
crime.
Media play crucial role of society, forms out understanding and tolerance
of what is right and wrong.

Punitiveness
Emotion and politically driven urge to punish, endorses longer and
harsher punishments to wrongdoers.
Scapegoat the ‘other’.
-Constructing and espousing authoritarian and hostile worldview
-Neoliberalism – ontological insecurity
-Cultural hegemony vs opportunities: strain
Daily images of hegemonic inspirations, ideas, lifestyle patterns through
media outlets such as commercials, shows, movies. These normative
ideas can range from consumerism and success, to ideas of justice and
democracy. Ideals received through media is quite different to the reality
of a society/individual. Eg. American Dream.
-‘Failed’ (non)citizens vs the morally ‘righteous’/‘indignant’
-Anxiety <—> hostility: fragile entitlement

Ideal offender/ good enemy

The ideal offender is a (dehumanised) alien (cf. Arend’sbanality of evil)
distant, foreign, non-person, an inability to critically interrogate the
pressures the push us into wrongdoing.

No ideal victim w/o ideal offender: Otherwise only sympathy but not
headlines

Ideal victim:
Recognised as such by others, eg. An elderly lady being raped by a drug
user vs a drunk man dying brawling in a pub.
1. Weak vis-à-vis the offender
2. Carrying out a respectable project
3. Could not be possible blamed/did best to self- protect/resist, eg.
Sexual assault within an abusive relationship, can’t escape relo.
4. The offender was big and bad
5. The offender is a stranger
6. Has just enough power to claim victimhood

Fear of crime
Audience reception theory
Mainstreaming; affinity; vulnerability; resonance; substitution
Eg. Women are aware they are at a higher risk of being subjected to
sexual assault crimes, so fear within women is reported to be higher.
Media homogenises the population, it reaches every corner of society &
globally, which is why we become closer to a victim, demographically
and geographically.
Internet: impacts how global a story may be.

Risks sensitivity: ecological & individual factors

Eg. Ways of dressing, alter lifestyles to minimise potential risk.

Shadow of sexual assault

Avoidance and defensive behaviour
Choosing ways to talk and dress, or where to go at specific times (dodgy
neighbourhood at night is a no go for most women.)

Moral panic
Social phenomenon; group that emerge to become a threat to societal
values, threat is presented my media in stylised and stereotypical
fashions.
Use lang such as ‘epidemic’, ‘invasion’, to boost moral panic/fear.

Moral barricades; ‘us’ vs ‘them’

Justice and vigilantism

Media is at the forefront of many issues, exposing moral, controversial
issues and values.
Media can damage trial, by influencing jury and judge of case. Humans
prefer simple answer to complex problems, so we are too ready to jump
to conclusions and be persuaded out of our established beliefs.
High profile criminal cases often become media circuses.

Repercussions of media capacity to reach and expose a case to millions:

both defendant and victims reputation can be shattered through media
attention, misrepresentation, public shaming.
This leads to victims being reluctant to report crimes, relinquishing many
hopes for justice, or leading to an attempt to seek justice through
alternative means.

Mass media are important instruments of governance, explode and

heighten for good and bad, public anxiety which lead to hostility at
individual and institutional levels. Marginalised groups rather than policy
makers are often on the receiving end of this media generated hostility
and anxiety, particularly in neoliberal era of insecurity and rapid
changes.

Criminal justice system not interested in victims, even less in their

stories. Media conversely, through documentaries fictional shows etc
may offer this missing context, explore the broad spectrum of the
motions of those involved eg pain, fear sympathy, loss of control.
Through media we can see an isolated in time episode of wrongdoing,
but a genesis of people transgressing the context of their wrongdoing, to
understand why this happens, to see it from a broader perspective.

Media allows to see an event through perspectives other than through

the criminal justice system.
Medias propensity for scandalising (ideal victim).
But media can also give voice to the disempowered.