In the present world, deviance and crime make up the largest proportion of news coverage. In his study, Surette (2014) found out that universal newspapers spare up to 30 percent of the space to crime. However, it has also been revealed that as the media is showing an increased interest in crime, they provide the public with a distorted image of policing, crime and criminals. For instance comparing the pictures gained in the British and American newspapers and the information we gain from official figures, the media provides an over representation of sexual crime and violence. This has caused the public to be insecure particularly for the female gender.
In a recent study by Surette (2014), he again revealed that compared to the 46 percent media reports that discussed about sexual violence and crimes in the past, present statistics of the same are at about 65 percent: an increase of about 20 percent. Looking at the statistics for all crimes, sexual and violence crimes take about 5 percent of the general crime figures. The question therefore is: why is the media only publishing sexual and violence crimes and not any other form of crimes in an increasing nature. In portraying victims of crime, the media stereotypes on older adults and individuals from the middle class claiming these groups engage more frequently in crimes and criminal activities (Hayes & Prenzler 2012).
Surette (2014) terms this ‘the age fallacy’. Media coverage also comes as an exaggeration of police success in doing away with crime cases. This is partially because the group expected to prevent crime happens to be the major source of crime tales and would want to have a positive representation of themselves. This could also be because of the over representation of violence crimes which has a higher chance of clearing up unlike property crime or bank robbery.
At the same time, the media provides the public with an exaggeration on the danger of victimization particularly to women, individuals with higher socio-economic statues and the whites. From this depiction, one can clearly see that the black race is on a higher side of committing crime with a larger percentage of the whites being the victims: that those from a higher socio-economic status a less likely to involve in crime and those from poor backgrounds are the main suspects (Sjovaag & Stavelin 2012). With the use of media to represent crime, the criminal reports are reported as a sequence of independent underplay of normal crimes. To term this aspect, Surette (2014) summarizes this as ‘dramatic fallacy’.
The images displayed on the media have led us to believe that in order to solve or commit crime, one must be clever or daring: this aspect is called ingenuity fallacy. News reporting has been bias with relation to criminal activities but new evidence has revealed a change in the nature of coverage of crime by media houses. Gosselt et al. (2015) in their literature review revealed that in the past, the focus of media coverage and crime was in petty crime and murder.
Unfortunately, in the 20th century, these aspects were of less interest. I think this change came hugely as part of elimination of the death penalty codes of murder while the rise in crime rates were meant to shine light on the specialty to attract attention. Crime has a distorted picture particularly in new coverage. This is because the media strives to provide a reflection that news is part of social construction. News is not just in existence out there waiting for a journalist to gather it up; instead, new is the result of a social process that involves the selection of potential stories while rejecting others (Gosselt et al. 2015). This means that news is not discovered; instead, news is manufactured.
A core factor of news manufacture lies in the belief of values. Journalists are trained on the values they should operate in while editing and deciding on what kinds of stories to be aired to the public. Therefore, if a crime story fits in these set of values, then it is worth telling it. The public does not only get images from new coverage (Sjovaag & Stavelin 2012). There are fictional representations in novels, TVs ad cinema which act as vital sourced of knowledge to crime because they have content that is so much related to crime. In the mid-20th century, crime thriller movies were reported to have higher sales compared to romantic films.
The media uses fictional representation of crime to show victims and criminals who follow the ‘law of the opposite’ meaning they are similar to news coverage. In mass media coverage, sex crimes, violence and drugs are over represented while property crime is under represented. This is made possible from the assumption that real life homicides are as a result of domestic disputes and brawls while fictional ones are rooted in calculation and greed (Sjovaag & Stavelin 2012). The new reports on crime reality tends to stereotype, target and label young, nonwhite, underclass offenders as the most notorious suspects of crime.
There has been an increasing concern in the pattern on media having negative effects on people’s values, attitudes and behaviors because exaggerating on certain groups such as the young, uneducated and lower class individuals. Even in fictional thriller and non-thriller movies where violence and crime happens, the characters that take up these roles are usually the poor, the uneducated, the young and at some point from the black race.
The media has exaggerated criminal risks on some groups of people while claiming a different group of people such as women and the old being lesser victims. Labeling has also been a way in which media has exaggerated on the level of crime. For instance, when high regarded entrepreneurs disapprove of certain behavior: they might pressure the police to intervene and change the problem, and if their campaign becomes successful, they might engage in negative labeling of such behavior especially from a change in laws.
Looking at the 2 year old boy killing scenario, the police department found 42 injuries on the boy alongside so many other wounds. In the news publication of this event, the media houses were so confident that the extent of the injuries made to the boy were performed by well able, energetic and non-educated youths who have so much time at their disposal and because they have nothing to do, they end up murdering James. Journalists forgot that the boy had gone for a walk with his mates and it could be his mates that performed that kind of damage to the boy.
In trying to find suspects for the murder of the boy, journalists together with police used lots of digital ‘Wanted Poster’ (Foster 1993). These posters were displayed along the most trafficked roads during the day for all to see. Apart from placing posters on the road, journalists used platforms like YouTube, twitter and Facebook to post photos of whom they think are suspects for the public to be part of the crackdown.
The case of Meeks was also a usual and easy one in the case of gun violence. Being a public figure, it was easy to get to Meeks as there was news about him being involved in gun violence and how the police are looking for him all over social media with the public liking his display pictures and police information. The case of Meeks used much of the police blotter blogs posted at the police stations. Unlike in the past where there were less digital activities, blotter blog photos would only be hanged at the police station.
In the case of Meeks, blotter blogs were hanged in online police registries every time there was an online activity (Molinet 2015). In the disappearance of Mcann, a Madeleines fund website was created to make the story public with more journalists attending the fund function. While at the function, the journalists would post firsthand information and pictures about the girl and the suspects as well (Rayner 2016).
It is the overrepresentation of crime in the media that has become a moral issue. The moral issue is hidden in the mistreatment of perpetrators and other minority groups while some potential crime committers are having a free ride. The media performs these overrepresentations through publishing photos of criminals, labeling them as social outcasts and a disregard in the society and incompetent. Although these are the only ways crime could be published, the public complains of over representation till today.