The Media & Social Control (WJEC Eduqas GCSE Sociology): Revision Note

Media coverage of crime

• The media both reflects and shapes public concern about crime

• People are influenced by what they see in the media – this is called the hypodermic syringe model

  • Media messages are "injected" directly into the minds of audiences, just like a syringe injecting a drug

  • It assumes audiences are passive and powerless to resist or interpret messages differently

• Coverage often fuels fear through over-reporting and exaggeration — a process known as deviancy amplification

• The media also plays a key role in agenda setting, deciding which issues become public priorities

  • By focusing on some stories and excluding others, the media influences what people perceive as social problems

News values

• Journalists, editors, and media owners (known as gatekeepers) decide which events are newsworthy based on certain news values

• Crime stories are more likely to appear if they involve:

  • children, e.g. child abductions or murders

  • violence – knife crime or terrorism

  • celebrities – involved in drugs, assaults, or drunk driving

  • graphic images – such as riots or disasters

• As a result, the media distorts public perception by:

  • over-representing violent and serious crime

  • exaggerating the risks faced by certain groups (especially women, children, and the elderly)

  • over-reporting crimes committed by ethnic minorities and young people, leading to negative labelling

• Because these crimes appear so frequently in the media, the public assumes they happen more often than they really do

Moral panics

• Sociologist Stanley Cohen (1972) argued that the media can create moral panics by exaggerating or sensationalising deviant behaviour

• A moral panic occurs when the media portrays a group or activity as a major threat to social values, causing public fear and overreaction

• Examples include:

  • ‘hoodie’ culture and youth crime

  • violent video games and drill music

  • knife crime in London

  • migrants, single mothers, or ‘benefit cheats’ are being blamed for social problems

Folk devils

• In moral panics, certain groups become ‘folk devils’ — scapegoats blamed for society’s ills

• These groups are stereotyped as dangerous or immoral

• Common folk devils include

  • youths

  • ethnic minorities

  • welfare claimants

  • refugees

The mods and rockers

• Cohen’s study examined fights between youth subcultures — the mods and rockers — in seaside towns like Clacton

• The media exaggerated the scale and seriousness of the incidents, describing them as riots and amplifying the fear of youth disorder

• The result was that:

  • young people were labelled as troublemakers (folk devil)

  • the public and police overreacted, increasing arrests and harsher treatment (moral panic)

  • this reaction led to more deviant behaviour, confirming the stereotype — a process known as deviancy amplification

• Cohen showed that the media not only reports deviance, but it also creates it

• A modern parallel is the 2011 London riots, when many joined the unrest seeking attention and notoriety through social media

Deviancy amplification

• Cohen argued that the media sensationalised and distorted the events (described above), which created a false image of young people and their behaviour

  • He described this as deviancy amplification

  • This amplification encouraged other young people to behave in the way portrayed by the media

  • A small altercation became more widespread as a result of the media's exaggeration

  • This resulted in a moral panic

• People reading newspapers and watching the news on TV began to see the mods and rockers as a threat to law and order

  • The police acted harshly due to the public outcry, and this led to further arrests

• Cohen's point is that the media amplifies deviance and causes more deviant behaviour

  • A more recent example is the London riots in 2011, where more people joined in the riots to have their 'five minutes of fame'

• Moral panics tend to fade, but their impact, i.e., public anxiety, harsher laws, and group stigma, can be long-lasting

Sociological perspectives on media coverage of crime

• The media can both promote social control and generate deviance

Functionalism

• The media can increase awareness of social issues and help prevent crime

• It can lead to public campaigns and interventions:

  • Knife amnesties and anti-violence campaigns

  • Reclaim These Streets (2021) after the death of Sarah Everard

  • Social media appeals for missing persons or witnesses

• According to functionalists, this helps reinforce shared values and maintain social order by warning people of the consequences of deviance

Interactionism

• Interactionists argue that the media uses labelling to construct deviance

• Through selective reporting, certain groups become stigmatised

  • E.g., media coverage of 'hoodies', 'chavs', or migrants creates stereotypes that influence public attitudes and police action

• Moral panics often reinforce the self-fulfilling prophecy, where those labelled as deviant act according to their labels

Marxism

• Marxists agree with interactionists but go further — they argue that the media serves the interests of the ruling class

• Moral panics distract the public from real issues such as inequality and exploitation

• By blaming the working class or migrants, the media diverts attention away from the failures of capitalism

  • E.g., during economic crises, newspapers often highlight youth crime or immigration rather than corporate or political wrongdoing