Media representation of crime - Moral Panic?

While I was doing some research about the relationship between media representations of crime and moral panic, I found this interesting video on Youtube that is worth of watching:

As defined by Cohen, moral panic is when the mass media delineate a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges as a threat to societal values and interest, often presented in a stereotypical way. Marsh and Melville (Chapter 3) also suggested that media actively shape citizens’ views of social life by providing only certain types of information and by subjectively framing issues in ways that lead the public to adopt particular beliefs.

Acting as claims maker, the media’s duty is to inform the public of the most concerned social problems, those that are often unfamiliar subjects to the average citizen. However, the way in which claims makers report on problems and what information they choose to report is often disfigured by biases, ignorance and many hidden agendas. The effect of such wrongdoing is that public fear is often created about issues that do not directly threaten majority of the public.

Williams and Dickinson (from the weekly reading) documented that the media’s tendency to focus on violent crime has led to a poorly informed and frightened public as resulted from the quantity and quality of the news media’s reporting of crime.

“If it bleeds, it leads.”

Profits are made when television and print news attract large proportion of audiences by satisfying the public’s curiosity with violence. The way that information is presented within a problem frame not only creates and amplifies public’s fear but in which became a public concern in regards to the danger and risk produced towards policing the society.

Cohen lists responses to school violence as one of seven clusters of moral panics, given the fact that responses to social problems are exaggerated and expressed in terms of moral outrage. He also illustrates how the response to school violence is a good example of moral panic as it involves suitable folk devils and sympathetic victims driven by the widespread concern in regards to school violence, accelerated response by dramatic cases, and the horror of the event elicits fear of widespread victimization.

Media’s role in shaping fears, capture the public’s imagination on the widespread of victimization rather than the actual crime rates exists. As Cohen states, it is essential to evaluate the content of the news articles published in order to understand what they articulate, the degree of accuracy in relates to reality, and what messages and images are trying to convey.

The Moral Panic Wheel

Controversially professor Ferguson from Texas A&M’s Department of Behavioral, Applied Sciences and Criminal Justice uses this Moral Panic Wheel to suggest that there is no one group or factor responsible for moral panics.

If such theory is factual, then who is responsible?

Youth, frightening?!

It is no surprising to observe that many adolescents had been the victims of unfair judgment by others; gratified to the media and the way it portrays young people these days. Media focuses on youth drug addiction, vandalism, conjointly with many other negative issues, in constructing the general public to view young people as stereotypes and gross generalizations.

Taking the media coverage of the 2004 student protests against increasing HECS fees as an example,

Capsicum spray used as students storm Chancellery in fees protest

Deliberately and entirely, the Sydney Morning Herald negatively focus on the minority who acted violently and wrongfully, ignoring the fact that majority of the young protestors staged in a peaceful manner.

Adolescents are in a stage of life where the preoccupation centres on finding their identities, and thus the surrounding environment becomes a significant factor in forming affirmation (Wren and Mendoza, 2004). Such process is continuing to develop throughout life; hence encouragements are requisite from all surrounding parties in order for the best outcomes. In spite of this, the media has incessantly focusing on creating a moral panic where young people being portrayed as violent and out-of-control criminals.

As asserted by Marsh and Melville in the Week 8 readings, media have played a crucial role in the construction of ‘problem youth’. Produced by media sensationalism and distortion, youth crimes have been illustrated as rapid increase in quantity and youth violence as increasing in severity. A great misrepresentation of youth crime invaded media coverage and these stereotypes had already deeply rooted in the public opinion.

Last month, Today Tonight deliberately puts to air fallaciously edited stories about home grown gangs of kids terrorizing neighbourhoods, purposely to scare the living daylights out of its viewers. Such program was late on being criticized by Media Watch:

Tweed Tales on TT

Why is such misrepresentation became a dilemma?

Media plays an important role in creating policy and laws other than informing the public to raise awareness and create opinion. Misrepresentation of young people imposes a danger that policies implemented may not address what is needed. Youth violence is framed as a growing crisis, both in size and in geography. Implications of negative media stereotypes to young people themselves and the society as a whole are beyond our expectations.

The way media constructed had raised moral panic among the society, advocating politicians and policy makers on a journey in searching for explanations in order to produce effectual solutions. Inevitably youth crime is sensationalized, simplified and decontextualized, and that youth violence is over-represented. What was reported by the media foster a climate of fear in which crime control is the only and last approach of choice, instead of making contribution in terms of helpful solutions for addressing the issues.

Young populations are the leaders of our future. Instead of being discriminated against or treated apprehensively, adolescents should be embraced by the community not alienated by it. The media is encouraged to shift the focus on negative and controversial issues concerning young people, to the accomplishments and positive contribution made by them. To be fair, both youth and the media have a responsibility to ensure that such progression maintains with the intention of precise and positive stories about young people being told.

Court On Air?!

Recent events and controversies had said so much in relation to the relationship between the courts, the media and the public in the Australian society. The most prevalent issue at the moment is media’s role in reporting court proceedings, whether it is appropriate to implement cameras in courtrooms.

Main argument in favor of such action is to ensure that the judicial process would be more transparent to the general public. Stepniak (week 8 readings) advises that our main focus should shift from whether the media be permitted to record and broadcast proceedings, to the consequences of courts being proactive in facilitating public access to any court-proceeding related matters. Based on the researches and experiences gathered, Stepniak argued that it is reasonless to doubt how media would be a useful tool to enhance public access to and understanding of the judicial process.

“Justice is done in public so tht it may be discussed and criticized in public…”

- Lord Scarman

The principle of open justice will imply the involvement of public scrutiny, with the balancing of the interests of a fair trial as the underlined principles.

Currently in Australia, Federal Court judges gave cameras to record their delivery of judgment summaries on a regular basis. In conducting the recording and broadcast of the insightful three part series titled ‘Divorce Stories’, broadcasters involved were exempted from liability granted by the Court.

However, some argued the media should not be accountable for publishing or broadcasting courts’ services, although it has a significant role in informing and scrutinizing court decisions of the general public interest. Such viewpoint can be further support given by the complexity of monitoring the media to adequately and correctly on distributing any court-related information. As stated by Alastair Nicholson, former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, “…the Australian media has an unimpressive track record in protecting the rights or privacy of individuals.”

Moreover, court records often contain personal privacy information, which would be too sensitive for any public recording and/or broadcasting. Public exposure on court proceedings might enhance public awareness of courts’ functions and the judicial power, but who should be accountable for in any leakages of personal privacy?