Media Skewed Toward Sensational Crimes

Criminology is continuously changing and developing. Advances of technology have made media our primary news source for crime. We believe the stories told by our local news media, not doubting a word because these sources are supposedly reliable. Nevertheless, they sometimes do spread false information. It may be intentional or unintentional. According to Cohen, media presence amplifies a problem which did not previously exist (Steeves and Milford, 2015) thus creating a moral panic. As media influence increases, it is necessary for criminologists to study moral panics, such as the Columbine School shootings or the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

These examples of how the media negatively impacted the Simpson murder case continued on through the most crucial parts of the case, jury selection. After the media had been talking O.J. Simpson for months and months there was a survey down of the mostly people who would believe O.J. innocent and the results came out that black women would be more likely to believe that Simpson was innocent (Linder). The ending jury pool for this case were eight out of the twelve jurors were black female. In order for anyone one be convicted there must be an unanimous decision of the twelve jurors. With those odds, O.J. Simpsons chance of receiving a fair and unbiased trial become very slim. The juror pool already greatly favored him and was a huge way why he was found not guilty even though facts suggest otherwise. Polling was done on

This paper goes over the effects the media had on the O.J. Simpson case and how the media interfered. The O.J. Simpson murder case is touted as the most televised criminal trial in history and from the second the murders were discovered there was a media frenzy. On the night of June 12, 1994 the bodies of Nicole Brown and her waiter Ronald Goldman were found outside of Nicole’s condo both stabbed to death. The suspect, former athlete, icon, and actor Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson was the main suspect of the crime. On June 16th, 1994 the LAPD pressed murder charges against him and placed a warrant for his arrest

Throughout my research I found that the book Criminology A Sociological Understanding, did a great job of listing the way media overdramatizes crime. The first way that the media does this is through something called crime waves. These crime waves pay close detail to a small number of multiple crimes which leads to a public panic that the crimes may keep occurring (Barkan, 26). One example in local media is something I saw on the local news tonight. 2 bodies were found today in Omaha in separate parts of the city

Violent crimes and minorities tend to be covered in the media more than other crimes and criminals. In addition,

The third challenging issues is the media. The media have a lot of influence when it comes to the Justice system. Most of the people getting in the justice system these days is basing their experience off of tv shows like CSI Miami, SVU, and other shows. One thing people are not understanding is this is people's lives at stake. A Lot of people are picking criminal justice as a career based on these tv shows. Also, media i can influence people to feel like a person is guilty, but this is before the court of law proves a person guilty. This can hurt a person’s case.

Different forms of media, such as television, films, books, and newspapers, have similar ways of portraying the criminal justice system. The media constructs representations of crime and justice and in doing this, it presents an often dramatized representation of the criminal justice system; and this does not just influence on the public’s lay view of crime but also for criminal justice experts (Marsh, 2014). In the media it is commonly known that they are a business, and businesses need to make a profit. Because of this, the media’s portrayal of the criminal justice system has been very negative. With the news, their main purpose is to produce what sells. So many of them would edit the information they have gathered and make a story that will sell. Also the media does not show the full process of the criminal justice as a quick process, while in fact it is not. For example, last year, Netflix released a short series called “Making A Murderer”. Most people claimed that they feel like they can solve a crime when they finished watching a series. While that series is very factual, it does not hit every single step of the criminal justice process.

The justice system has to be free of outside influences. A person is truly innocent until proven guilty. Part of the problem with the media is that they believe that their first amendment right allows them to trample on people 's rights to be innocent until proven in a court of law beyond any reasonable doubt that they are guilty. In the justice system shortcuts should not be taken, and allowing the media to express their opinion as a fact it 's detrimental to our justice system.

What factors contribute to this significant gap between perceptions of violent crime and the reality of it? When asked where they obtain their information about crime, an overwhelming plurality of random participants ages 13 to 59 responded with the mass media (Warr, 2013). In the context of this survey and also this paper, the mass media is defined as diverse mainstream media technologies intended to reach a widespread audience (Warr, 2013). This encompasses all television, radio, internet, and paper outlets which broadcast to a wide range of audiences

To what extent has the media shaped your understanding of crime and the criminal justice system?

The media has an immense influence on the fear of crime. Many people have their perception of violence formulated by the media. However, the media can distort and sensationalize individual incidents and cause notions about crime that are inaccurate in comparison to official measures of crime.

All things considered, what the media covers and how much they chose to cover has significantly changed over the years, the most apparent in crime coverage. This consistent coverage of crime gives the audience an opportunity to interact with the media. They can feel a part of the intensity of an investigation, cheer on the enforcers, become immersed in their stereotypes. On the other hand, they can appreciate deviance for its resilience to overcome and resist

The media plays the role as entertaining and a source of information to its viewers, however, with the current crime trends, most viewers have the perceptions that our criminal justice system is lacking in areas of proper sentencing and protecting the viewers. All this is based upon what we see in the media is the information reliable or not? I say this because of hearing about news personality lying about their experience only to booster the networks rating. When the criminal justice system has contact with the media, most will withhold information or give misleading information to justify the capture or conviction of a criminal. So not only are we questioning the efficacy of the criminal justice system but the media as well.

When it comes to the media and its relations to victims, the media can and should be viewed as a form of victimization. This is because victims want privacy and the media threatens that or rather disregards it whoever. In terms of law, it can be seen as a violation of there basic right to privacy. Although the general public has the right to what is occurring in their neighborhood, the real question is how much detail should the public get to know? The public should be satisfied knowing the crime and a general description of victims, but the media broadcasts personal details of the

Over the course of the semester, I have learned about numerous aspects of Mass media and crime. We have broken these aspects into nine major topics based on what they focused on. The nine major topics includes theorizing media and crime, construction of crime, media and moral panics, media construction of children, media misogyny, police, offenders, and victims in the media, crime and prison films, role of the internet in crime and crime and surveillance culture. The topics that I found most interesting to me would be media and moral panic, construction of crime news and children and police, offender and victims in the media. I chose these four topics, because they play a role to the overall information that I have been paying close attention to in regards to how the media presents the information and how our Criminal Justice system addresses the concerns in the media. For our final exam, were asked to pick and discuss a topic that interested us, because of my curiosity of those four major topics I decided to pick a historical case that touched basis with all four topic areas. My topic being the historical case of Brown v. Board of Education. My goal of this essay is to give you the back story of the case, explain why I chose this case, discuss how the case is considered newsworthy and how it links to broader social structures.