AC1.5 Explain the impact of media representations on the public perception of crime
The impact of media portrayals of crime
A short introductory video
Moral panic
Please read this sociology resource which provides a great overview of issues and covers key terms and theorists.
Smoking as a Moral Panic
Listen to the podcast below to further understand how moral panics are created
www.sociology.org.uk/cc_theories_audio2.htm
SocShortcuts_deviance5_v.pdfChanging public concerns and attitudes
This article written by Katy Sian, Ian Law, S. Sayyid Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds (March 2012) is fairly lengthy but, have a look - you will see some very good examples that can be used in support of your notes. You need examples of media portrayal in order to get into the top mark band. This can be used in conjunction with Box 3 on page 34 of the textbook.
The Media and Muslims in the UK.pdfGo the BBC page and watch the embedded video
Perceptions of crime trends
Stereotyping of criminals
Alan Cicourel
Typifications
Media portrayals of offenders are often where the police get their typifications of offenders from.
This leads labelling theorists to look at how laws are applied and enforced. Their studies show that agencies of social control are more likely to label certain groups of people as deviant or criminal.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is the sociopsychological phenomenon of someone "predicting" or expecting something, and this "prediction" or expectation coming true simply because the person believes it will and the person's resulting behaviours align to fulfil the belief. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. The principle behind this phenomenon is that people create consequences regarding people or events, based on previous knowledge of the subject.
Levels of response to crime and types of punishment
The 2011 riots
Mods and rockers
