What makes crime news?? 4.1

authorKNOWN FOR THE ‘SEDUCTION OF CRIME’

PROFFESOR AT UCLA

PROVIDES A PHEMENOLOGICAL THEORY OF CRIME CAUSATION

What makes crime news??

• 1) personal competence and sensibility• 2) collective integrity • 3)moralised political conflicts• 4) white collar crime

Crime news, crime stats and reader interest

• Crime news has been continually present in newspapers for around 150 years. It is argued that more educated readers ignore crime news or read it with superficial interest.

• On an average day, stories on crime and justice consist of about 15% of the total articles read.

• Comparisons of crime news and crime statistics have produced consistent findings.

• Official statistics report more common crimes than ‘white-collar’ crimes, however news reports present white-collar crimes more as people like bourgeoisies would commit these higher end crimes than proletariats. Eg, lower class people committing crimes like stealing a toothbrush from Tesco.

• Out of a set of new stories within new york newspapers, 66% were concerned with white collar crimes, whereas 22% were concerned with common crimes.

White collar crime• White-collar crime refers to financially

motivated nonviolent crime committed by business and government professionals

• White collar crime in the news is constructed in a dialect relationship to the moral routines of audiences every day life.

Daily crime reading as a ritual moral exercise.

• Assaults on property are seen as far less news worthy than assaults on a person. This indicates that readers’ concerns are more humanistic than materialistic. This is because an assault on a person is more relatable and evokes emotion. Most of the stories on violent crime in contemporary newspapers can be understood as serving readers’ interest in recreating daily the moral sensibilities through shock and impulses of outrage.

• Similarly, the second group of crime news stories; those that depict threats to sacred centers of society, are deemed interesting because readers understand that the questions of physical safety are of minor relevance compared to questions about collective moral character.

• Many people who watch crime stories on the news recognise and use the moral tale within the story. This allows them to relate towards the story which they can comment on but do not have to deal with.

• Stories that reflect pre-existing tensions reflect among groups, people in political conflicts of hunger the need for moral changes to use against their opponents.

• Crime news takes its interest from the most recent moral panic and not the actual focus on the crime. For example, if a terrorist attack was to happen, many news outlets would focus on the safety of the country after the attack and not what has just happened.