Making the News: If It Bleeds, It Leads

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Making the News If It Bleeds, It Leads

• SOCI0067 Crime and the Media
• Lecture 2
• Dr. L. Cho, PhD
• E-mail Lifcho_at_gmail.com

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Announcements

• Course blog http//soci0067.wordpress.com/
• Reading packet (around HK66) can be picked up at
  the photocopy centre located at the Meng Wah
  Complex (next to Park n Shop)
• Tutorial Sign-up
• Keep up with your journal entries

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HKU Student Media Usage Survey

• Please fill it out!

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Theories About Media and Crime

• Relationship between media and crime
• How do media affect people?
• Do the media cause crime?

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What Do We Mean By Media?

• Something that carries some kind of communication
• Communication involves sending message from one
  or more senders to one or more receivers

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Most Common Media

• Newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, comics, books,
  films, billboards, photographs, recordings,
  telephones, video games, etc.

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Including New Media

• Media created with the help of modern computer
  processing power
• Computer internet, xanga, MySpace, Facebook,
  YouTube, Tudou, Baidu
• Mobile phones
• MP3s, etc.
• More coverage of private affairs with fewer
  restrictions
• Bus Uncle Incident

Available at http//hk.youtube.com/watch?vRSHziq
JWYcM
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To Become E-Famous
Available at http//www.wftv.com/video/15817921/i
ndex.html
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Recorded Brutal Attack to Post on YouTube

• March 20, 2008
• Polk County, Florida
• One 16 year old girl attacked by group of girls
  (14-17 years old)
• Treated for concussion, damage to her left eye
  and left ear, and numerous bruises,
• Video taped with the intent to upload on MySpace
  and YouTube
• April 7, 2008 tape released to media
• Eight charged with battery and false imprisonment

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Demand Stiff Punishments for Web Sites

• "I want stiffer punishments for these shock Web
  sites that entice kids to make these videos so
  they can be famous on the Internet,"
• -- Patrick (father of the victim) told The Ledger
  of Lakeland, Fla.

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YouTube Ban Video That Incite Violence

• Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) criticized the
  site was too open to terrorist groups
  disseminating militant propaganda.
• Videos will be deemed to be "inciting others to
  violence,"
• YouTube removed some of the videos that marked
  with the logos of al-Qaeda
• Refused to take down most of the videos on the
  senator's list
• Existing guidelines prohibiting graphic violence
  and hate speech

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What Do We Mean By Crime?

• Popularly perceived by the public as deviant
• Behaviours legally deemed as an offense
  (murder, rape, assault, pick-pocketing, street
  scams)

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Deviance is created by the imposition of a
particular definition of behaviour of a
particular context
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Stealing Note Paper

• Shelves of Supermarket

• From HKU library printer

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Same Act Defined Differently

• Supermarket

• HKU

• Arrested
• Charged with theft

• Internal discipline

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Social context where the offence and deviance
takes place is a central aspect of sociological
explanation
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Cross Cultural Communication as Deviance
OK Signal Middle Finger Thumbs Up Whistling
U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S.
Expresses approval Offensive gesture Hitch-hiking or show of approval When happy
JAPAN KOREA NIGERIA EUROPE
Means you are asking for money Used for pointing Rude gesture Sign of disapproval at public events
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Including Sex Work

• Not legally defined as crime
• However, considered by many, though not all, in
  Hong Kong as deviant

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Why Study Media and Crime?

• Media is pervasive

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Permeate All Aspects of Our Daily Life
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Media Usage by Young People in the United States

• A typical day
• 304 hours a day watching TV
• 144 hours a day listening to music
• 102 hours a day using a computer
• 049 hours a day playing video games
• 043 hours a day reading
• 032 hours a day watching videos, DVDs
• 025 hours a day watching movies in a theatre
• 014 hours a day watching prerecorded TV
• Total 6.7 hours using media of some form
• 2005 Kaiser media usage study for young people
  (ages 8 to 18)

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New Media Use

• 66 use instant messaging
• 64 downloaded music from the internet
• 48 streamed a radio station through the internet
• 39 have a cell phone
• 35 created a personal Web site or Web page
• 34 have a DVR such as TiVo in their homes
• 18 have an MP3 player
• 13 have a handheld device that connects to the
  Internet
• 2005 Kaiser media usage study for young people
  (ages 8 to 18)

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An Average American

• 9.2 hours using consumer media
• 62 households have video game equipment
• 50 households have newspaper subscription
• Homes with children
• 70 own video game system
• 18 of teenagers (13-17) read often 50 read
  sometimes, 32 never read
• Teenagers spend 2.5 hours on a home computer
• 66 of U.S. children have a TV set in their
  bedroom
• Children spend about 28 hours watching TV (twice
  as much time as they spend in school in a year)
• Adapted from Popular Culture and the American
  Child site

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Media is an Important Source of Knowledge

• Media can create and reflect popular sentiment
  about crime and justice
• In turn, influence social policy

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Understanding Medias Role in Constructing Our
Reality

• Nature and priorities of media as a business
• How is media driven by organizational needs
  and/or political beliefs?
• How do they accomplish this?

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Why Study Crime and the Media?

• Crime is a basic staple of media
• Internationally featured in all mass media forms

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2006 Local TV News Coverage (TVB ATV)

• Economy (14.7 of local news) Seasonal economic
  figures (GDP, inflation, prices, salaries),
  business environment, government policies,
  corporate developments, fluctuations in market
  situation (equity, food supplies, gasoline)
  Crime (14) ICAC cases, customs actions of
  search and seizure, court verdicts and sentences,
  homicide, fraudulent acts, dead body found,
  illegal gambling. criminal damages, trafficking
  of drug, crime investigation, robberies,
  arson.etc.  
• Politics (13.7) 71 rally, the re-emergence of
  Mrs Anson Chan and Mrs Regina Yip, Government
  responses to popular pressures for universal
  suffrageetc.
• Accidents (12) Fire accidents, car crashes,
  traffic jams, suicides, casualties due to drug
  abuses, pedestrian hurt by falling objects from
  nearby building, disruption of electricity
  suppliesetc.
• Health and Safety (11) Resumption of supply of
  live stock from the mainland, impact of drug
  abuses on health, health issues associated with
  over-weight children, outbreak of bird flu,
  safety of elevators in KCRC, the ranking of
  killing diseases in Hong Kong.etc.

Adapted from Mr. To Yiu-mings Introduction to
Journalism Course at HK Baptist University.
Available at http//www.hkbu.edu.hk/jour/course/
1120/
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2006 Local Newspaper Coverage (Apple Daily, Ming
Pao, SCMP)

• Politics (18.7)
• Crime (17.3)
• Accidents (16)
• Economy (16)
• Health and safety (5.3)

Adapted from Mr. To Yiu-mings Introduction to
Journalism Course at HK Baptist University.
Available at http//www.hkbu.edu.hk/jour/course/
1120/
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Comparison

• TV

• Newspapers

• Crime (14) 
• Accidents (12)
• Economy (14.7)
• Politics (13.7)
• Health and Safety (11)

• Crime (17.3)
• Accidents (16)
• Economy (16)
• Politics (18.7)
• Health and safety (5.3)

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US Crime Coverage
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12
9.5
7.1
5.8
4.7
4.2
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Hong Kong Violent Crime Statistics 2003 to 2007
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2006 Crime Coverage

• Hong Kong

• Los Angeles

• Population nearly 7 million
• Violent Crimes 14,817
• HK newspaper coverage of crime 17.3

• Population nearly 3 million (2,936,101)
• Violent Crimes 87,940
• US newspaper coverage of crime 4.2

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Los Angeles County Crime Statistics 2006
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Why Study Crime and the Media?

• Does media give objective and neutral
  presentation of reality?

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Case Study 1

• O.J. Simpson

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Most publicized criminal trial in history

• June 12, 1994 Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald
  Goldman were found fatally stabbed outside
  Brown's Los Angeles apartment
• Former American football star and actor
• Brought to trial for the murder of his ex-wife
  Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald
  Goldman
• Acquitted in 1995 after a lengthy trial, the
  longest jury trial in California history.

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OJ Simpson June 27, 1994
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Time Magazine Justification

• The Time cover made Simpson's face darker,
  blurrier, and unshaven.
• Matt Mahurin, the illustrator at Time Magazine
  who manipulated the police photo, said he "wanted
  to make it more artful, more compelling.
• An NBC poll taken in 2004 reported that, although
  77 of 1,186 people sampled thought Simpson was
  guilty, only 27 of blacks in the sample believed
  so, compared to 87 of whites.

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Break
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What is the Relationship Between Crime and the
Media?

• Heated public debates since the early 1900s

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One Popular View

• Media is a primary cause of crime in society

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Distinction

• Causality

• Correlation

• X causes Y.
• Whenever you have X, you get Y

• Y comes after X and is possibly connected with it

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Direct Effect

• Sensational media encourages and accounts for
  evil violence

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Implication

• Censorship

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Other Popular View

• Media has little to no effect on crime
• No need to censor

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Effects Model (Stimuli-Response Model)

• 1920s Psychologists into behaviourism (view
  individual behaviour in response to a stimuli)
• Period of great social change, immigration
  urbanization
• Related problems breakdown of traditional values
  and family structure
• Media seen as positive powerful to promote
  change, improving society
• People directly affected, absorb and follow what
  they hear and learn from media
• Tend to accept neutrality and objectiveness
  media
• Tend to quantify attitudes, behaviours, feelings,
  see what they study as objective and real
• Lab test, lab test, lab test

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Stanford Study

• Bandura et al. (1950)
• Children shown film/cartoon with violence
• Children left in room to bash Bobo dolls

• See you tube for re-enactment of Bandura study
  http//hk.youtube.com/watch?vZeE_Ymzc1rEfeature
  PlayListpDD6880672E8F6D40playnext1index12

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Functionalists Account of Media

• Aka hypodermic syringe model
• Audience is passive
• Media injects values and ideas to passive
  receiver, producing direct negative effect on
  behaviour

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Apply Direct Effect Theory to Nude Photo Scandal
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Critics of Direct Effect Model

• Most of these psychological research conducted in
  labs under controlled conditions
• Fails to account for human interaction
• Fails to account for competing messages
• Recipients are mechanical and passive
• Unable to think for themselves
• Reduce behaviour as being due to only one factor
  when multiple reasons for human action
• Measures immediately response only rather than
  long term accumulative effects
• Lab condition, cannot replicate in real life
  situation

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How to Account for Aggressive Behaviour When
Individual Does Not View/Read Media?
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Critics of Direct Effect

• Violent crime occurred before media became
  popular
• No evidence show that remove violent media means
  no violence
• See shows on tribal societies where there is
  violence but no T.V.

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In Hong Kong

• Lots of popular movies and Chinese newspaper
  coverage show lots of blood guts
• Hong Kong has low incidence of violence, in
  particular murder.

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2006 Crime Coverage

• Hong Kong

• Population nearly 7 million
• Violent Crimes 14,817
• HK newspaper coverage of crime 17.3

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Growing Frustration from 1960s

• Cant show how or why people are influenced by
  the media
• So, changed research direction

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What Does the Media Do to People?

• What do people do with the media?
• What is the purpose of media in peoples everyday
  life?

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Audience is Not Passive,but Active Agents
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Studies of British American Soap Operas

• For viewers
• TV watching is functional
• Escapism, tension release, enhance social
  interaction, personal identity

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Why Are People Not So Influenced?

• Selective exposure
• Selective perception
• Selective retention and recall
• Media has few lessons on everyday life too
  removed

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Rise of Reception Analysis (1980s)

• Media doesnt control individuals
• Uses media as a resource
• Select images and meanings that relate to wider
  experiences

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Sociology Perspective Critical of Direct Effect
Approach

• Limitations to direct effect / psychological
  Approach
• Media is not value neutral
• Media rooted in ideological beliefs
• Direct effect de-contexualize individual
  collective behaviour
• Behaviour must be understood in its social
  context

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Sociology Perspectives

• People are active participants in media
  interpretive process
• Functionalist media is part of the structure and
  workings of society necessary for survival of
  society. Media stabilizes society (as oppose to
  cause change)
• Marxist/conflict Media allied to power
  structure, agents of political control

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Cultural and Media Studies View

• Focus less on effects, more on variation of
  responses to the content as part of broader
  cultural phenomenon. Focus on normality of media
  role in peoples lives rather than the dangerous
  effect.
• How do media construct and censor certain
  behaviours in oppositional terms?
• How does it promote moral lessons?

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Criminology Perspective

• Direct effect TV retards higher cognitive
  functions, TV acts as stimuli
• Indirect effect media coverage on sex gtgtgt lax
  attitude on sex gtgtgt crime
• Media part of political process media pressuring
  state to do something about a problem. Does the
  public influence media or vice versa?

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Criminology Perspective

• Rational Choice media is positive as audience
  learn about negative aspects of crime
  (deterrence)
• Social Control media reinforces conventional
  values (role of media in preventing crime)
• Public Perception media influence perception and
  fear of crime
• Public Pressure media influence what criminal
  justice system does

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Social (Media) Construction of Reality

• Assumption Knowledge is subjective, variable,
  socially based

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Constructed Reality
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Shared symbolically

• Collectively shared through language
• Others experienced is shared
• What people believe to be true is largely
  acquired symbolically rather than actually
  experienced
• We have limited experience, rely on media for
  information

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President Bush
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Donald Tseng
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Man Walking on the Moon
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Media is BIG Business

• Driven by profit
• Content and images influenced by business motives
• Need to present competing claims

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American Approach to Media and Crime

• Social Constructionism

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Competing Constructions

• Claims descriptions, assertions, stereotypes
  about nature and extent of problem
• Claimsmakers various interest groups who make
  specific claims, shape problem as they see it,
  morally, politically and financially driven
• Secondary Claimsmakers news media
• Ownership who owns or come to own the problem
• Links linkage of one issue to other problems

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Media Filter

• What is majority view
• What is dramatic
• What will lead to more business

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Happy New Year!

• See you in two weeks