Crime and the MediaOverview of Media

Social ConstructionismMADD Politics

A Brief History of Crime/Media

Crime has always been a good source for media◦ Earliest forms of media had crime/justice themes

Folktales, theatre, songsTypes of media

◦ Print (as early as 1400s) Pamphlets Penny press, dime novels, comic books

◦ Visual Film (1910) Commercial radio (1920s) Commercial television (1950s) cable television (1970s) VCRDVR Internet/Computer games

Content

News◦TV (local, national, cable)

Entertainment ◦Examples

Infotainment

Why is crime-media such a good match? The “mediated experience”

Social Constructionism

Knowledge is socially created (shared meanings)

Sources of “knowing”◦Direct (experience)◦Symbolic (other sources)

Where direct and symbolic knowledge clash, what wins out? ◦Conformity experiments, horse meat

Surette—The Process

Physical WorldCompeting Constructions Media as the Arena Winning Social Construction

Claims Makers / Claims

Moral Entrepreneurs ◦Examples of claims makers in crime/justice?

Role of law enforcement? Claims

◦Factual◦Interpretive

Linking ◦Satanic Day Care Cult Murderers (p. 37)◦Meth is more addictive than _______.

Frames

DefineCJ Frames

◦Faulty System◦Blocked Opportunities◦Social Breakdown◦Racist System◦Violent Media

Symbolic Crimes

“Perfect Examples” of the problem◦Worst crime

Innocent victim, heinous offender/crime◦Link construction to symbolic crime

Child would be alive if not for _________.◦Press case in media

Ownership

Who “owns” a particular problem helps dictate policy◦Common problem owners? Examples?

You See Timmy…

What is the media image of crime most visible in news and entertainment? ◦Theme in both Surette and Beckett/Sasson?

A particular “frame” has largely won out in the competition for social construction of crime

What effect does this have on the “real world?”◦Cultivation theory and the “mean world”

Selection Theory, Qualifications Response using experimental design

The Politics of “Law and Order”

Beckett and Sasson ◦Dominant construction of crime not accident

Context of 1950s-1960s◦Liberal agenda/policies?◦Conservative strategy?

Individual understanding of crime/disorder Welfare as bad

Law and Order II

Conservatives hate change◦Civil rights

Competing construction of civil disobedience Goldwater Nixon

◦Crime as National Concern ◦Strikes chord with subset of Americans◦LINK crime to civil rights to other fears of

change/disorder

◦The “Southern Strategy” Nixon “We’ll go after the racists” Problem: Crime not federal. Solution?

Reagan/Bush Years

Reagan ◦Economy in tank (#1 American concern)

Still, put crime as high on agenda Shift federal law enforcement from white collar to

drugs/violence ◦ “Just say NO” ◦Democrats Pile on

Bush ◦War on Drugs

Willie Horton as a “wonderful mix of liberalism and a big black rapist” (Horton as his “running mate”).

Media Involvement

Crime as situational/personal failure◦“COPS”◦News coverage, etc.

War on Drugs◦Crack babies◦The “Meth Epidemic”

You See Timmy

Common perception/story = politicians respond to public demands◦Public “fed up”

Beckett and Sasson◦Politicians helped “construct” and cultivate the

law and order frame Criminal justice problem and solution (not poverty,

etc)

MADD

Context of 1970s/early 1980sClaims Makers? How did MADD “construct” the problem of

drinking and driving?◦Vs. competing claim of the time?◦Use of Media?

Context ◦Fit for “industry”◦Fit for political context