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Sociology: Crime and The Media

This is the first quiz based on crime and the media, as part of the AQA A-Level topic of the Globalisation and Crime in Contemporary Society topic in Sociology. Below are the words which need to be matched to their definitions: Fear of Crime Ray Surette (2010) Relative Deprivation Crime as a Commodity Moral panics The Woman With The Flower Tattoo Google selling of Zombie Knives
Quiz by billyn
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Last updated: February 12, 2024
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First submittedFebruary 12, 2024
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The Woman With The Flower Tattoo
This refers to a dead woman being identified through Interpol's 'Operation Identify Me', a public appeal to identify 22 women, believed to have been murdered in Western Europe between 10-40 years ago:
-Rita Roberts' (then identified) body was found in Antwerp, Belgium in 1992, 100s of miles from where she grew up in Cardiff.
-When 'Operation Identify Me' launched, a photo of her body's tattoo was released to the public, having previously only been available to law enforcement agencies.
-Some days after it launched, a relative of Rita Roberts saw the image of the tattoo on a news website and alerted the authorities - they said Roberts had moved from Cardiff to Antwerp in February 1992.
-She had sent a postcode in May 1992 and had not been heard from since.
-This case study shows how the media is able to solve crime.
Moral panics
This refers to the argument that the media acts as a moral entrepreneur and decides who or what is deviant:
-Media coverage of some crime and events can lead to deviancy amplification - London Riots 2011.
-A group is labelled as folk devils and this develops, for example, 'Britain's baby-faced knife thugs'.
-However, McRobbie and Thornton suggest that the idea of a moral panic doesn't exist in today's media-saturated society - the huge diversity of media means that a dominant narrative is less likely.
-Also, the groups most likely to be labelled as folk devils now have a voice through user-generated content, such as that found on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Fear of Crime
This refers to the argument that the media influences what we as a society discuss and think about - this is known as agenda setting:
-People form opinions about crime based on their sources of information.
-Crime is delivered through the values and assumptions of what is seen as newsworthy - news values.
-These news values exaggerate the extent of violent crime.
-Deviance by celebrities is seen as particularly newsworthy.
-The media creates a hyperreality of crime that has little connection with the real world.
Crime as a Commodity
This refers to the argument that we are immersed in the mediascape - a continuous flow of images that blur the difference between reality and fiction:
-Crime is packaged and marketed to young people as a romantic, exciting, cool and fashionable cultural symbol.
Relative Deprivation
This refers to the argument that the media creates images of lifestyles we can't afford:
-Lea & Young: 'the mass media have disseminated a standardised image of lifestyle, particularly in the areas of popular culture and recreation, which (...) has accentuated the sense of relative deprivation'.
Ray Surette (2010)
This sociologist suggests there is a 'backwards law' with the media constructing images of crime that are the opposite of reality.
Google selling of Zombie Knives
In 2019, the Offensive Weapons Act made it illegal to possess, sell, import or manufacture 'zombie knives', however these knives are still selling in the UK as of December 2023:
-Google is profiting from ads offering lethal weapons for sale to people in the UK – including 17 inch zombie knives, 'military tactical' blades and 'zombie killer sword apocalypse machetes' – despite claiming to ban them in 2015.
-Sponsored listings for zombie knives have appeared at the top of search results, even when the SafeSearch setting was turned on.
-Google directed customers to online marketplaces, mostly overseas, which offer to ship the knives to customers in the UK for as little as £20.
-The knives have been able to be bought without age verification, ID, or vetting checks.
-Google said it had now removed violating listings and had 'strict policies' to keep people safe - it did not say how the ads had come to be on its platform in the first place.
-In the year to March 2022 there were 282 murders overall involving a knife or sharp instrument in England and Wales, the highest figure since 1946.
-Of those killed, 99 were under 25.
-In September 2023, a 15-year-old girl was reportedly killed on her way to school in London with a foot-long, serrated zombie blade.
-This case study shows how the media is able to cause crime.
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