The opinion of media in CJS spaces (particularly between the paradigms of the crime control model and due process theory) are fragmented because some see media “as promoting the crime control model by educating the public about the functions of the justice system and by enhancing the deterrence by publicizing the punishment of criminals, while others see them as hindering crime control efforts by interfering with the efforts of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute crimes, by negatively reporting unethical but effective law enforcement practices, and by withholding information and evidence from the courts” (Surette, 1992, p. 9).
Mass media images are "characterizations of crime and crime control" and are embedded in "social, political, and psychological makeup of American society" (Barak, 1994, p. 3). Newsmaking criminologists are different than other mass media analysts due to their knowledge of the CJS (p. 8). one dimensional analyses see crime as either 1) "a reflection of the interests, preferences, and needs of political, class, and cultural elites" or 2) crime news is a a reflection of demands, interests, and needs of an homogenized mass audience" (p.8). Barak believes that "crime news ultimately reflects the socially constructed perspectives of both the privileged elites and the popular masses" (p.8).
"How we regard victims, offenders, and agents of crime control emerges out of the social interaction between ordinary people, journalists, and sources of information within the structural and political-economic contexts of active processes of news construction and crime management" (Barak, 1994, p. 6), and to quote Gans, it is "the exercise of power over the interpretation of reality" (p. 6).
White collar crime is downplayed while violent crime is overplayed (Barak, 1994, p. 11); some news plays LEOs as good warriors fighting bad, while others play them as incompetent and ineffective (p. 11).
"Symbolic rewarding is accomplished primarily by identifying heroes, villains, and neutral characters and associating them with specific traits, beliefs, and kinds of behavior. Symbolic punishment is achieved through labeling or stigmatizing certain activities or traits as antisocial, deviant or undesirable" (p. 13).
"The media obsession with stories of crime, law, and justice has become a primary cultural device for defining acceptable behavior, identity, and reality, and as a result it is often difficult, if not impossible, to separate the perception of crime and the reaction to crime" (Barak, 1994, p. 32). The absence of certain types of crime are as important and the inclusions of others (p. 33).
Morville (2005) cites Barry Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less) who comments that people mistake the pervasive stories about crime to mean that these crimes occur frequently. This distorts views of risk and changes people's choices, sometimes for the worse (p. 169).
Models and Typologies of Control
Models
According to Ericson, Baranek, and Chan (1996), there are three models (depictions) of control in the media: First, there is the compliance mode of control which means “An agreed standard is reached and possible risks are reduced…law is ‘a series of instructions to administrators rather than a series of commands to citizens’…the goal is regulation rather than repression” (p. 291). Compliance officers aren’t looking for proof of violation; they are looking for make sure an institution meets agreed upon standards. They try to avoid formal prosecution and legal sanctions; punishment is having to use resources to meet standards (p. 294). Second, (and the most publicized by the media) This is the deterrence mode of control which “is directed primarily at the deviant acts of individuals rather than the staes of affairs of organizations” and associated more with crime and less with administrative law (p. 294). Additionally, “Enforcement officers working within the deterrence mode adopt a penal style in which detection, proof of violation, and punishment are paramount” (p. 294). Deterrence officers usually have the moral ground (which compliance officers are more ambiguous and may not garner the same public support). Finally there is a combination of the two which is basically a combination of the two.
Typologies
According to Ericson, Baranek, and Chan (1996), there is also a typology of control developed by D. Black in 1976. The first is the penal style which is focused on punishing wrongdoing and includes “law-enforcement officers and officials engaged in investigations, making arrests, charging people, conducting trials, conducting sentencing hearings, and administering penal sanctions” (p. 297). This also includes crackdown campaigns against such things as drugs, impaired driving and security at prisons and psychiatric facilities (p. 298).
The second form of control is the conciliatory style which focuses on ”the resolution of a problem or a conflict through concessions and reconciliations that restore harmony between parties concerned” (p. 299). Examples are labor unions in negotiations with management, commissions’ inquiries on institutions who may have failed to deliver services properly, commissions looking at complaints against officers, or handling of protests (p. 299). This is closely aligned to the compliance mode of control, and “the focus is on regulating social relationships within and between organizations and institutions rather than punishing wrongdoers for individual acts of deviance” (p. 299).
The third form is the therapeutic style which focuses on “helping the wrongdoer through medical, welfare, or other provisions that might restore the person to normality” (p. 300).
Mechanisms of Control
Mechanisms of control are: 1) support mobilization (“organizing efforts…to achieve political gain” - p. 301); 2) Coercion (controlling actions “imposed unilaterally by on party against another” - p. 301) 3) Investigation (i.e., police searches, searches of deviants and knowledge about them- p. 301); 4) Negotiation (“deliberations between two or more parties to reach agreements affecting them” p. 301); 5) Adjudication (“dispute-settlement actions conducted by a third party with the power to enforce an outcome” p. 301); 6) Rule-creation (regards legislation and other regulation standards, p. 302) 7) Resource control (“allocation and condition of funding” p. 302) and 8) De-escalation control (“lifting of sanctions, such as decriminalization and diversion from the criminal justice system pp. 302-3).
Institutions playing the control agent involved in media are 1) governments (p. 303), 2) private corporations (p. 303), 3) community organizations (p. 304), and 4) individuals (p. 305).
Theories
Mass Society Theory
According to Jewkes (2004), since Le Bon in 1895, people have bemoaned images and dreamed of the literate days gone by. Supposedly the mass society, characterized by the lack of individual and emphasizing the mass “commoners” who are “uneducated, ignorant, potentially unruly and prone to violence” (p. 7). As more isolated, independent, and bureaucratic communities grew, communities supposedly turned away from law enforcement and more toward vigilantism because law enforcement was seen as “remote, indifferent and incompetent” (p. 7). The media was seen as something controlling people’s thoughts and distracting them will less political focus.
Behaviorism and Positivism
According to Jewkes (2004), behaviorism and positivism is an empiricist approach to psychology starting from J.B. Watson (inspired by Pavlov) and drawing from positivism (which regards the world as fixed and quantifiable). Behaviorism argues that identity is shaped by responses to external environments which form observable, recognizable patterns of behavior (p. 7) which could be used to predict future patterns of behavior. This idea lends itself to belief in cause/effect, and in criminality, this began to make people think that a criminal was not free will, but was a product of biological, psychological, and sociological positions. Crime could thus be examined and treated, and those like Lomborso thought that biology could be measured for criminals (p. 8). In mass media study, the idea that the mass, not the individual reacts in a certain way made the media main player for influence; for instance, the media’s depictions of violence makes people more violent.
Functionalism
According to Jewkes (2004), the first phase in mass media research was called functionalism or effects research because these researchers wanted to find the function (as in what mass media did) of mass media (p. 9). This conceived mass media as the media just injecting values into its audiences, so it’s also called the hypodermic syringe model. Anxieties about mass media tend to take three forms: moral/religious anxiety (exposure causes lewd/corrupting behavior) (p. 9-10); it undermines civilizing influences of high culture (it debases tastes); and it mass media only represents the ruling elite (which means that the mass’ consciousness would be manipulated to the ruling elites’ whims. Critics of behaviorism/functionalism say it is too crude to claim cause/effect because it ignores other factors such as the many meanings of “texts”, the unique audience member, and the social/cultural context of the text and audience (p. 11). Many times proponents say it is common sense that the influence doesn’t apply to them or their children, but it is the masses who have bad parents and are bad people that would be most at risk. (According to Jewkes (2004), Gramsci calls common sense ““a reservoir of historically discontinuous and disjointed ideas that functions as the philosophy of nonphilosophers,” a folklore whose fundamental distinction is its “fragmentary, incoherent and inconsequential character” [Gramsci, 1971: 419]” (p. 12).) that these things would apply to (p. 13). Durkheim is a fundamental figure in Functionalism: http://sociology.about.com/od/Sociological-Theory/a/Functionalist-Theory.htm .
Strain theory and anomie
According to Jewkes (2004), anomie means “normlessness” and is a Durkheim phrase used by Merton. This is the idea that society, community, and social order are on the decline and are replaced with alienation and disorder (p. 14). There are some sections of the community which are set adrift, but society as a whole remains in tack, in part due to shared goals like hard work, wealth, or status. Anomie is a result of the community putting too much emphasis on one point without a clear means of achieving it, and some “innovators” turn to questionable means to pursue their goals. To fix this, communities need to find legitimate ways to help citizens reach goals without having to resort to illegal means (p. 15). Mass media’s role in this theory is instilling the needs, goals, and desires into a population. One example of fulfilling the anomic desire is prisoners trying to keep up with the latest footwear fashion (p. 15). Although strain theory fell out of ready use by the 1970s, the theory has been recently applied internet to show how online spaces have fulfilled the need for community by traversing time and space to deal with problems of dislocation (p. 16). (See Durkheim's Anomie Theory: http://criminology.wikia.com/wiki/Durkheim%27s_Anomie_Theory).
Marxism, critical criminology, and “dominant ideology”
According to Jewkes (2004), from the 1960’s to present, this approach has been the dominant paradigm in academic media research. This theory draws on Marxism and the “media-as-hegemony” approach which sees the media (like other capitalist institutions) as being owned by the ruling elite so therefore carries out the views of this class while denying and ignoring other class views (p. 16). Gramsci took Marx’s ideas and incorporated hegemony where the ruling class gains consent by consent rather than coercion. Laws, family, the education system, and mass media helps carry out these goals to make it look like the ruling class’ decisions are natural, inevitable, and unarguable. The media can help define things, and “extend, legitimize, celebrate or criticize the prevailing discourse at any given time” (p. 16). Marx and Gramsci draw on the labeling theory which states crime and deviance aren’t products of sick people or sick societies; crime and deviance are products of being labeled as such. Further, it is the ruling class that establishes what the criminal is (SEE: Andrea Levinas states that two Boston communities viewed crime in different ways – those that saw criminals as part of the community had a higher threshold for what they considered “criminal.”) The mass media can be seen as making panics (see critical criminology) and defining the criminal, a viewpoint which often “reproduces a dominant ideology…and silences contradictory voices” (p. 17). This dominant viewpoint is increasingly from the same dominant, limited number of companies controlling the media (see the political economy approach). It often overlooks white collar crime in favor of more sensational stories (p. 20). This limited ownership tends to offer limited viewpoints which normalize the stories covered and narratives created (p. 18). The common theme here is that information flows from a top-down approach. Critics think this approach overstates the intent of institutions to deceive their audiences. They see messages being shaped by discourse communities and that journalists learn how to be journalists which makes them start replicating dominant tropes (p. 19).
Pluralism
According to Jewkes (2004), a fourth approach is pluralism (p. 21) which sees the audience as more skeptical and mass media as more positive and offering an intellectual freedom. This viewpoint is often the view of journalists and policy-makers. It sees the “ruling class” as more diverse and the audience as having mass education, social mobility, and a rise of “celebrity culture” (p. 22). Critics believe this position is limited by its own idealism ignoring the limited corporate control of media institutions, and although it may appear the public is invited to speak, oftentimes their contributions are pre-produced and subject to criticism by the studio panels. Although there is media pluralism in the form of more channels, message pluralism does not necessarily exist (p. 21-2). Although the internet may further seem to create pluralism, many times people stick to sites detailing their own beliefs (p. 24).
Realism
According to Jewkes (2004), a fifth paradigm is realism. This approach looks at what media representations are really doing to people (i.e. stereotypes) and moves the conversation from what does media do to people to what do people do with the media (p. 25)?
Postmodernism
Postmodernist approaches resist one dominant ideology such as Marxism and moves to a mash of several of these ideas together such as realists’ concerns with crime and victimization, labelist concerns with the labels of crime, and the pluralist ideas of a shift towards destructuraliztion into more participatory forms of media (p. 25). Overwhelmingly, postmodernism is “concerned with the excesses of information and entertainment now available, and it emphasizes the style and packaging of media output in addition to the actual substance of its content. This is the society of the spectacle’ (Debord, 1967/1997) a hyperreality in which media domination suffused to such and extend that the distinction between image and reality no longer exists (Baudrilland, 1981; 1983). Mass media and the collage of meaning have produced a culture centered on the immediate consumption and sensationalized impact but with little depth of analysis of contexutaliation (Osborne, 2002). It Is the fragmentary, ephemeral and ambiguous that are observed, and pleasure, spectacle, pastiche, parody and irony are the staples of postmodern media output. It is the media’s responsibility to entertain, and audience gratification is the only impact worth striving for” (p. 26). This complicates the idea of a discerning audience however, and it also begs to question how entertainment is defined. Postmodernism points to society fragmentation, but we can all become victims with the spectacle of the media (I.e., replaying the 9/11 attacks). Cultural criminology “seeks to understand both the public’s fascination with violence and crime via the mass media, and also the enactment of violence and crime as pleasure or spectacle” (p. 28) (see works by Sutart Hall, Stanley Cohen, Phil Cohen, and Jock Young). Cultural criminologists see crime as something that offers allure to break the rules and get out of routines (i.e., gang crimes, riots, and protests?) (p. 29). So, it is not just the crimes that are of interest; but the “criminalization of certain cultural practices” (p. 30). The internet plays a role by celebrating a “world of entertainment, spectacle, narcissism and performance” (p. 31) and can be privatized.
According to Ericson (1995), crime and the media often work together; for instance, there is news about crime, and TV and movies are often directly based on or feature stories about crime. The stories are rooted in “an omnipresent public discourse about disorder and decline” (xi) and are often used to support the need for more security. It also constructs “demons and enemies” and shows what “respectable fears” are. Bordieu (1986) found that crime and the media is a means of “articulating moral sensibilities, tastes and distinctions.” Often the media itself is targeted as the reason for moral decline. The overall theme is that “’crime’ is something that is ‘made’ according to the institutional classifications and communication formats” and different platforms have been described as helping these declines in different ways (xiv). There are five crimes of the mass media when dealing with stories of crime: 1) Fun (media entertains but doesn’t educate-“they dull the mind, induce laziness, foster political alienation and produce cultural dopes” p. xii). Regarding fun, three conclusions that the books makes are 1) that the format a trial is displayed in (i.e., televised) is important, and “television mediation, driven by the need to be fun, has a number of potentially negative effects on the legal processes: like invasion of privacy, prejudiced trials, and “public opinion verdicts’” (Drucker, xv); 2) moral problematic (individual moral character, community moral character, political morality, and organizational morality) and formatting make the public enjoy stories of crime, and higher quality outlets let the audience make the moral judgment, and lower quality outlets tell the audience what to think. Exploring mass media stories on crime ultimately function as a routine-ized, ritualistic function like the morning shower (Katz; xv); and 3) news is a source of order and security. People seek out specific news stations not because of their information per se but because of familiarity and routine, and the presence of news in public places provides ontological security. News ultimately “fives them a sense of controlling their individual lives through familiar, usual and taken-for-granted formats (Snow pp. xv-xvi). 2) The second crime is folly (they are organized in a way that will produce distorted knowledge- i.e., journalism is biased). Regarding folly, the conclusions are that “the reality of news is embedded in the nature and type of social relations that develop between journalists and their sources, and in the politics of knowledge that emerges on each specific newsbeat” (p. xvi). 3) The third crime is fear (crime stories induce fear which leads to “Distrust, social distance, privatized and individualized lifestyles, and lack of community). Regarding fear, because drama has turned into a habitual experience, in order to mesh with pop culture, crime stories often need to be dramatized. Often the violence is presented as shocking and new rather than something that is a historical constant, and police often emerge as the heroes. Ultimately, three fears emerge: 1) “the dramatization of violence and other social problems is seen as the primary locus of popular fear”, and position people to be shocked into action (xix). 2) The persistence of seeing these stories may put people into dread, dismay, consternation, and trepidation (pp. xix-xx). And 3) people fear the medium itself- people fear that TV is part of the problem of crime and TV itself is ruining culture (p. xx). 4) The fourth is Fake (stories simulate reality so that everything seems fake leading to “lack of context or history, and a decline in hierarchical order.”). For fake, the dramatization of crime has turned crime into a spectacle, and whether wholly dramatized or televised for news, people are skeptical of the reality of crime representation. 5) The fifth crime is fetish (“the mass media commodify crime prevention and security products in the same way that they commodify toothpaste or a pop star, to the point of fetish” which results in safety as a part of consumer style like any other product). For fetish, since most broadcasting organizations are companies after profit, they are looking for an audience. Thus, the crime that they relate has become a commodity itself. They have also turned safety into a commodity that needs to be purchased, and push people to listen to “experts” who can provide knowledge (xxvi).
References:
Barak (1994)
Ericson, Baranek, and Chan (1996)
Jewkes, 2004
Morville (2005)
Surette, (1992)