AC1.4 & AC1.5
Lily Robinson
Newspapers present crime in two different ways there is tabloid and broadsheet, tabloid has a more
liberal viewpoint and are typically aimed more at the working class. Tabloids tend to take a more
gossipy approach to the news and use eye catching headings, however broadsheets focuses more on
getting as much information included as possible, broadsheets take a more conservative approach
aiming it at the middle to upper class. It is more detailed and gets straight to the point. On average
12.7% of newspaper reports are about crime, the amount of space devoted to the crime was greater
the more downmarket the newspaper.
Crime in TV and film is usually a falsification of the crimes in real life, crimes are made out to be
exiting and are produced to entertain audiences. The police are usually portrayed as the bad guys
whilst the criminal is the character the audience supports. 57% of TV programmes contained
violence last year. A factual example of crime in TV and film is ‘Deceit’ which is where the police set
up a honeytrap to try and catch out a man called Colin Spragg whom they thought committed the
murder of Rachel Nickell, however it turns out not to be him! The police are portrayed as the ‘bad
guys’ and gives the public a negative perception of the police.
In electronic games crime is a big factor, 90% of video games contain some type of crime and the
player is the one who is actually committing the crime to gain a reward such as points or money to
use in the game. Some real life crimes have been blamed on video games like shooting which plays a
big part in many popular video games like ‘call of duty’, however there’s no scientific link. In the
game ‘DOOM’ the offenders of the Columbine School Shooting used the game to plan the shooting
by making a model of the school and planning how they were going to go about it. By planning it
through the game it also made it a lot harder for police to chase.
Crime is mentioned in some song lyrics a popular place to find this is in drill music, where it talks
about crimes like: stabbing, robbing, gangsters, drug dealers ext. Crime is seen as being ‘cool’ by
youth and some might say it encourages it, many musicians have also been an offender of crime
themselves for example 6ix 9ine (Daniel Hernandez) who was arrested and pled guilty to use of a
child in sexual performance, he was also arrested on racketeering weapons and drugs. In total
around 99.5% of pop hits refer to violent acts.
Social media has a big impact on the way people view, witness and commit crime. Social media is a
platform for people to commit hate crime, racism and homophobia, complaints to police about
social media crimes have risen by 780% (guardian, 2012) An example of social media being a
platform to commit crime is Luka Magnotta who posted videos of himself killing cats and posted
them onto youtube and eventually he went on to kill a man and posted himself doing it on youtube!
It made viewers outraged and shocked. An example of a fictional crime through social media was the
killer clown videos, which came out after the American release of the film ‘IT’ people started going
out dressed as clowns, people began to think these were actual people going out and killing people,
however no-one was ever killed, social media just gave the impression that they were.
Moral panic is where an event/crime is overexaggerated in the media which causes panic in society,
the panic then is picked up again by the media which could cause more individuals to get involved in
the event making it a much bigger problem than it initially was. This cause the public to worry about
the extent of the crime in society, an example of this is the ‘Mods and Rockers moral panic’ which
Lily Robinson
Newspapers present crime in two different ways there is tabloid and broadsheet, tabloid has a more
liberal viewpoint and are typically aimed more at the working class. Tabloids tend to take a more
gossipy approach to the news and use eye catching headings, however broadsheets focuses more on
getting as much information included as possible, broadsheets take a more conservative approach
aiming it at the middle to upper class. It is more detailed and gets straight to the point. On average
12.7% of newspaper reports are about crime, the amount of space devoted to the crime was greater
the more downmarket the newspaper.
Crime in TV and film is usually a falsification of the crimes in real life, crimes are made out to be
exiting and are produced to entertain audiences. The police are usually portrayed as the bad guys
whilst the criminal is the character the audience supports. 57% of TV programmes contained
violence last year. A factual example of crime in TV and film is ‘Deceit’ which is where the police set
up a honeytrap to try and catch out a man called Colin Spragg whom they thought committed the
murder of Rachel Nickell, however it turns out not to be him! The police are portrayed as the ‘bad
guys’ and gives the public a negative perception of the police.
In electronic games crime is a big factor, 90% of video games contain some type of crime and the
player is the one who is actually committing the crime to gain a reward such as points or money to
use in the game. Some real life crimes have been blamed on video games like shooting which plays a
big part in many popular video games like ‘call of duty’, however there’s no scientific link. In the
game ‘DOOM’ the offenders of the Columbine School Shooting used the game to plan the shooting
by making a model of the school and planning how they were going to go about it. By planning it
through the game it also made it a lot harder for police to chase.
Crime is mentioned in some song lyrics a popular place to find this is in drill music, where it talks
about crimes like: stabbing, robbing, gangsters, drug dealers ext. Crime is seen as being ‘cool’ by
youth and some might say it encourages it, many musicians have also been an offender of crime
themselves for example 6ix 9ine (Daniel Hernandez) who was arrested and pled guilty to use of a
child in sexual performance, he was also arrested on racketeering weapons and drugs. In total
around 99.5% of pop hits refer to violent acts.
Social media has a big impact on the way people view, witness and commit crime. Social media is a
platform for people to commit hate crime, racism and homophobia, complaints to police about
social media crimes have risen by 780% (guardian, 2012) An example of social media being a
platform to commit crime is Luka Magnotta who posted videos of himself killing cats and posted
them onto youtube and eventually he went on to kill a man and posted himself doing it on youtube!
It made viewers outraged and shocked. An example of a fictional crime through social media was the
killer clown videos, which came out after the American release of the film ‘IT’ people started going
out dressed as clowns, people began to think these were actual people going out and killing people,
however no-one was ever killed, social media just gave the impression that they were.
Moral panic is where an event/crime is overexaggerated in the media which causes panic in society,
the panic then is picked up again by the media which could cause more individuals to get involved in
the event making it a much bigger problem than it initially was. This cause the public to worry about
the extent of the crime in society, an example of this is the ‘Mods and Rockers moral panic’ which
