Complete summary Crime, Power, Media (RGBUSTR023)

Summary – Crime, Power, Media
Overview
Week 1.............................................................................................................. 2

Week 2.............................................................................................................. 8

Week 3............................................................................................................ 15

Week 4............................................................................................................ 19

Week 5............................................................................................................ 23

Week 6............................................................................................................ 27

Week 7............................................................................................................ 39

Week 8............................................................................................................ 45




1

, Week 1
This course is situated within the development of criminology from the 18th
century to today, with particular focus on

- Critical criminology  focus on power inequalities and structural
factors
- Cultural criminology  sees crime as a cultural and meaning-making
event



The 3 tenets of this course

1. Crime: different ways of defining and understanding crime
2. Power: unequal, symbolic, material and institutional power shaping
crime
3. Media: representations of crime

 “The street scripts the screen, and the screen scripts the street.”



Crime is constructed and situational. Not everyone has the same definition or
impression of crime.

Main approaches:

 Legal: Crime=violation
 Sociological approach: crime shaped by social context
 Social constructivist approach: Crime is created through rule
making and labelling. Howard Becker (1963): crime is produced by
social groups
 Zemiological (harm) approach: focuses on harm rather than
legality. Expands crime to include environmental and structural harm.

 This course focuses on the last two approaches.



Social construction of crime

- Mainstream/traditional view
 Crime caused by pathological or antisocial individuals



2

,  Criminal law: strict definition and criteria of what is a criminal act
and what behavioral components are prerequisite to define a
criminal
 The emphasis is on:
 Humans as rational actors and biological determinism
 Scientific objectivity and truth
- Constructivist view
 Law itself is socially constructed
 Crime is shaped by:
 Power: who is the criminal and who is (conveniently) left
out?
 Historical and social context
 Structural inequalities (class, urbanization, etc.)

 From Rafter, 1990:

 Constructionism studies how crime knowledge is produced, verified
and circulated.
 Focus is not ‘how to control crime’, but why certain behaviors are
defined as crime at specific times



Types of media:

- News media: tv, newspaper
- New media: social media, internet, blogs
- Popular media: movies, podcasts, books

 media serves both information and entertainment = infotainment

 From Jewkes, 2004:

 Crime is ubiquitous in media culture and is highly newsworthy
 Media shapes public perceptions, fears and understanding of crime



Mass society theory

In the late 19th and early 20th century, modern societies underwent
fundamental changes in the organization of modern societies, along with the
rise of positivism, behaviorism and bio-psychological approaches in the
social sciences.



3

, These perspectives viewed behavior as a response to external stimuli, which
can be predicted or conditioned. Principles of natural sciences (medicine,
biology) where applied to criminology (scientism) which led to a focus on
scientific research and experiments aimed at identifying clear cause-and-
effect relationships.

Crime was seen as a result of free will but also, for some people, as a
inevitable fate based on biological or psychological factors. As a result,
policies began to emphasize the prediction and prevention of crime.

Media came to be understood as a powerful force influencing the masses,
based on the idea that it could directly shape behavior through a stimulus-
response mechanism.

 Hypodermic syringe model: Mass media injects society with values,
morals, and information that affects behavior and thought

These developments sparked societal anxieties, such as religious concerns
as well as critiques from both intellectual right and left perspectives. In
addition, portrayals of crime were believed to trigger fear and anxiety, and in
some cases even motivate deviant or criminal behavior (copycat actions).



Strain and anomie theories

Anomie – Emile Durkheim: a breakdown of shared moral rules. This means
society is no longer able to regulate the ‘appetites of people’, leading to a
state of ‘normlessness’ where many individuals do not follow common rules
and more crime emerges.

Strain theory – Robert k. Merton: people’s desires (success, money,
beauty) are shaped by culture, not just natural. Society encourages everyone
to achieve these goals, but not everyone has the same opportunities or
resources (money, status, or education). This gap between goals and means
creates ‘strain’. As a result, some people may turn to crime or deviant
behavior to reach these goals.

 Anomie and strain are fueled by the mass media
 Build on the ‘hypodermic syringe model’: values and images of success
are ‘injected’ into society (mass media ‘feed’ us the cultural goals) 
Those that cannot achieve these goals face strain which will push some
individuals to non-conform or criminal behavior



4