Week 8: famous by default

Herostratic fame
 21st July 356BC
 Herostratus burned down the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the
ancient world.
 He did so because he sought notoriety
 He claimed credit so that his name would be immortalized

Case examples
 Jack the ripper
 Jeffery Dahmer
 Ted bundy

Homicide and mass murder

 The modal mass murder has been misrepresented by the media. Why?
o Modal mass murder is committed by the male head of the household in a
private setting.
o More common so therefore less rare? Considered a “private matter”? People
not fearful of this occurring to them?
 Offender-victim relationship
o Domestic-related homicides are reported less prominently than non-
domestic homicides (shorter in length, less likely to be on the front page of
the newspaper, less likely to include an image). (Wong & Lee, 2021)
o This is likely because: less likely to elicit fear, and therefore less attention (not
“widespread” in impact unlike stranger victimisations. Public are more scared
of unprovoked attacks, occurring in public spaces despite the fact that
domestic homicides occur more often).
 Ideal/perfect victims
 o More attention is paid to “ideal” victims, as they elicit more shock and
emotional responses from the audience. ”pretty,” “smart”, “defenceless”
women. Innocent children. Etc
 We can see this in a serial killer example, Peter Sutcliffe (Yorkshire
Ripper) who started off by murdering prostitutes before moving onto
victims were “respectable” and “innocent women” (as labelled by
police). More media attention as a result and more police resources
given to the investigation (Gekoski et al., 2012).

Consequences
Unrealistic depiction of crime
 Providing infamy to offenders
 Fear of crime

“celebrity” and news making

 Criminal celebrities
 Deviant divas
 Rouge celebrities
o Gender and transgression
 Celebrity criminals

Fear of crime
 Traditional news: TV news vs newspaper news
o Research has found TV news to be linked to increased FoC levels, but
newspaper news to have no affect on FoC
o Next week… what about social media?
 Modifiers: perceiving the media as a reliable source of information; media diet;
critical engagement/analysis with the news source more important than frequency
of consumption; crime rates in the neighbourhood; perceptions of safety; previous
victimisation
 Cultivation Research
o Substitution
o Affinity
o Vulnerability
o Mainstreaming
o Resonance
o “ceiling effect”