Deck 4: Crime and the Media

Question 1

Moral panics are often caused by a slow build up of societal change.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

What is the role of the police in deviancy amplification?

Answer 2

In the case of drug use an example is the moral panic in London in the mid to late 1960s that encouraged an increase in police action, fuelled by harsh sentences, to marijuana use. As a result, drug taking becomes more secretive, the price of drugs rises, the gains to be made increase and organised crime becomes involved.

Question 3

Are there any conclusions about whether watching violence on television alters behaviour?

Answer 3

Livingstone repeats the oft-quoted observation by Schramm et al. (1961: 11):For some children, under some conditions, some television is harmful. For some children under the same conditions, or for the same children under other conditions, it may be beneficial. For most children, under most conditions, most television is probably neither particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial.However, she then (2000: 315) goes on to say that 'bland and cautious conclusions … do not satisfy the strength of public feeling on the issue' and notes that this strength of feeling may well be related to the generalised desire for childhood to be a time of relative innocence - an uncontaminated private sphere.

Question 4

Another approach to the influence of the media is to suggest 'crime news as cultural conflict'. What does this mean?

Question 5

One approach to the influence of the media is 'crime news as hegemony in action'. What does this mean?

Question 6

How did the media play a role in the development of 'police fetishism'?

A)they portrayed the police as sexually attractive
B)they portrayed the police as absolutely crucial to social order
C)they presented a rose tinted view of the police as social glue
D)some officers were portrayed as corrupt or vigilante

Question 7

What are the possible answers to questions about the relationship between viewing and aggression?

A)More aggressive people select more violent programmes to watch (selective exposure)
B)Violent programmes make people more violent
C)Some people have violent upbringings
D)Certain social circumstances make people more aggressive and make them more likely to watch more violent television programmes

Question 8

Two major approaches to the possible effects of the media have emerged since the Second World War, these are:

A)televisual approaches
B)behaviourism
C)mass society approaches
D)observable influences

Question 9

Why are some crimes deemed newsworthy?

A)They happen in the local area
B)They involve a celebrity
C)Some aspect of novelty
D)The crime was dramatic

Question 10

Under what circumstances might the police- media relationship become tense or problematic?

A)Where a war is in progress
B)If a number of murders take place in close succession
C)If increasing numbers of hostile stories about the police appear in the press
D)If the police have to make cutbacks in personnel

Question 11

Primary definers of social events are:

A)the media
B)people in powerful and privileged positions such as the police
C)journalists
D)offenders

Question 12

What is a 'moral panic'?

A)a rapid build up of public concern
B)groups of people seem to have become promiscuous
C)society is breaking down generally
D)religious leaders appear to be ignored

Question 13

Why is it argued that the media increase fear of crime?

A)People who watch too much television are scared to go out
B)Media representations of crime distort 'reality'
C)Women who view portrayals of interpersonal crime become more fearful
D)Young offenders have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to suggestion

Question 14

If violent crime makes up made up one-quarter of all crime stories in the 'quality press' and 46 per cent in the 'popular press' what percentage is of notifiable crime is violence against the person?

A)0.25
B)0.04
C)0.37
D)0.6

Question 15

The recently-formed Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is totally responsible for the policing of cybercrime.

Question 16

It has been argued that although the arrival of any new media is often greeted with concern or moral panic, none has generated as much as the internet.

Question 17

Secondary definers are the police, who can speak as 'accredited sources' to journalists.

Question 18

What are the four primary categories of cybercrime defined by Wall (2001)?