Crime and media has a relation between them. Media in many cases turns out to be the cause of crime and sometimes it is just the extreme opposite. It turns out to be the cure of crime. It is because of the media that that many crime gets highlighted that happens to occur in some uncommon and remote places. The essay comprises two arguments. The first argument is that media is the cause of crime and the other argument that stands in contrast with the previous one is that media is the cure of crime. Generally, media is usually seen to exaggerate the crime. The crime is brought to the notice of the entire world with the help of the media. The media is thought to a powerful forum to bring out the crime in front of the entire world. In this way, it acts as a cure and on the other hand, the criminals get ideas from the crime series of how to do the crime. They get innovative ideas of committing the crime. This is how media influences the persons to commit the crime and therefore they are known to be the cause of the crime.
In many case the idea prevails that viewing violence in the media turned out to influence the aggressive behavior of an individual. However, it has been argued by many critics that the relation between crime and media turns out to be weak. The other factors such as the environmental factors are to be considered in many cases. There are certain key factors that influence the selection of the crime stories. These stories include the dramatization of many crimes in the media that represents the action and the excitement, which serves as the motivator of committing crimes. The human-interest stories about crimes are another example of committing the crimes. This includes violence and sexual crimes. The fictional representations of crime are the strong motivator of the crime. The representation of crime in different forms of media that is on television, TV and novels are considered as one of the important source of crime. In many cases, it has been found that the individuals got inspired from the fictional stories and they committed similar crimes as shown in the television. After a long analysis, it can be stated that the media have a huge influence on the portrayal of crime. The media gives the opportunity to view the images, films and videos that justify crimes that include robbery, murders, carjacking and other similar violence. The main reason for which media can be held responsible for committing the crime is the change of behaviors of the individuals. The change is seen not only in the behavior but also in the attitude of the individuals. The media portrays the crime in order to make the common people aware of the crimes occurring around the entire world. Many people take this otherwise. A change occurs in the behavior of the attitudes of the individuals after viewing the crime series. It results in the change of the mores of the society (Caterini, 2015).
The influence of media has been witnessed more on the children and the adolescents. The impact of violence has been seen on people regardless of their age, gender, class, and ethnicity. The problem increases while the aggressor is left unpunished. These are the evil consequences that the media has on the society. At present the issues that is shown in media revolves around the effect of the sexual media and sexual behavior. There are many examples where the people got aroused, their thoughts and emotions got aroused, and there was an increase in the crimes. There is a huge competition among the different forms of media like the magazines, television, cinema and other similar forms. They all have the pressure of gaining attention of the audiences with some interesting news (Fuchs, 2017). The news of crime is taken as a form of entertainment to the audiences. There are many such examples where some friends while having conversation with each other talks about what is printed in the newspaper and what has been shown in the news channel in the television. This gives a notion where the news can be treated only as the means of entertainment. This has worst effect on somebody and this might not have bad effect on others. Media has the power to influence the common mass (Shelby & Hatch, 2014). The media has the power of influencing the behavior of people. This is best understood with the help of an example. There have been many such cases where the readers read in the newspaper about a suicidal teen acted imitating her favorite actor. It is similar to case presented on a television program for the purpose of entertainment in which a person was influenced by a movie, and was set a ticket boot on fire in one of the subway in New York. The person tried to imitate part of her favorite movie. The other example is the news that appeared in the year 1974, where four other girls with a glass bottle raped a girl. While enquiry was done they came up with the explanation that they were inspired by a movie named, ‘Born innocent’. These are the cases where the people are unable to separate fantasy from reality. It is because of this reasons that the media is held responsible for maximum crimes (Carpentier, 2016).
(van Uhm, 2016). This statement is justified as media takes all the efforts to stress on the control values of crime. The function of media is to educate the common public about the crimes that was going around the world. The media serves as a prime source of the information related to crime (Beck, 2015). Media gives the first hand information about crime to the public. The public is sometimes made aware of certain crimes through media itself as live telecast of the crimes are sometimes shown in national as well as international television. Social media has been reported to change the way people commit the crimes in the recent times. The social media has turned out to be one of the most powerful platforms of making a crime highlight to a maximum amount of people (Marsh & Melville, 2014). In the 21st century, the social media has acted as an important forum for posting the worst consequences of the crime therefore making people aware of the crime and therefore healing the pain of the victim of the crime (Jewkes, 2015). The social media has served as a powerful platform to convey the consequences of the crime. The social media platform includes Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. The social media transformed the way the individuals understand and experience the crime and victimization. Media has been beneficial for some criminal justice institutions. Nowadays even the conversations of the police can be seen on social media (Berger, Free & Searles, 2015). This has turned out to be an important tool in the investigation of the police. The broadcasting of the criminal trials has added an extra level of transparency to the criminal proceedings. There was an incident where a woman was killed after being kidnapped from a store. However, her facebook page helped in finding the finding the real criminal. The media has a huge influence on the people. The publication of the crime on media creates an amount of fear and among the general people. It acts as a healer in such case. The consequences of committing the crime that is the punishment or any kind of painful penalty creates a fear among the public. This is how crime acts a healer and it is a cure to the crime (Greer & Reiner, 2015).
There has always a deep relation between media and crime. This relationship can be well understood with the help of dependency. Media and crime are dependent upon each other. Both cannot work without each other (Reid, 2015). Media now has the power to bring about a change in the decisions made during any crime is occurred. The media has the power to reach out to maximum amount of people. The crimes that even occur in the remote areas are highlighted and brought out in front of the entire world. The media crime stories serves as a piece of news as well as a form of entertainment to the audiences (Surette, 2014). The cases like sexual harassments, physical tortures and similar cases that are kept hidden from the world are highlighted because of the media. This can be termed as the strength of the media. Therefore while concluding this can firmly be stated that media and crime has always remained dependent upon each other since a longer period. The two arguments that were discussed in the essay are right from both perspectives. The media sometimes is the cause of crime and sometimes it is the cure of crime. In every sense crime is related to media and the vice versa.
References
Beck, B. (2015). Crime, Incarceration, and the Left. New Politics, 15(2), 89.
Berger, R. J., Free, M. D., & Searles, P. (2015). Crime, justice, and society: An introduction to criminology. Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Carpentier, N. (2016). Media and participation: A site of ideological-democratic struggle (p. 408). Intellect Ltd.
Caterini, M. (2015). Criminal Risk, Media Representation and Role of the Criminal Law Culture. Beijing L. Rev., 6, 55.
Fuchs, C. (2017). Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Greer, C., & Reiner, R. (2015). Mediated Mayhem: Media, crime and criminal justice.
Jewkes, Y. (2015). Media and crime. Sage.
Marsh, I., & Melville, G. (2014). Crime, justice and the media. Routledge.
Reid, S. T. (2015). Crime and criminology. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Shelby, R. M., & Hatch, A. R. (2014). Obscuring sexual crime: examining media representations of sexual violence in Megan’s law. Criminal justice studies, 27(4), 402-418.
Surette, R. (2014). Media, crime, and criminal justice. Nelson Education.
van Uhm, D. P. (2016). Crime to Cure. In The Illegal Wildlife Trade (pp. 197-253). Springer, Cham.
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