How Does Social Media Affect The Criminal Justice System

One of the largest ways the media influences public opinions is through the news. News outlets report on local and world events, often applying their own bias to advance an agenda (Cavender, 2004). In general, entertainment television depicts crime, especially violent crime, far more often than it actually occurs in the real world (O’Keefe, 1987). Crime is more often than not presented to the public in two ways: crime is violent and criminals are nonwhite (Gilliam, et al, 1996). When put together, these two factors have

The police and the media have been very closely related to one another for a very long time and they will always have to have a relationship with them. They are so closely related because crime itself is considered news that is valuable to the people of a community. Without the media and law enforcement working together, many people would not know what was going on and/or how to act about certain crimes if there are any within their communities. With that in mind, law enforcement must keep up with all the advancing technologies that involve any kind of media. This includes social media, print, internet, television, and cell phones as well. Keeping up with all these different media platforms, working together with the media, and staying on

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.

Assess sociological explanations of the role of the mass media in creating moral panics about crime and deviance:

The fear of crime and media bias are one of the many issues faced associated with crime the way society views the correlation of news and frequencies of crime is far off from reality. Another reason why fear of crime is most important is due to the reinforcement provided to the public of which precautions is needed to be taken for their safety. Many of the crime that is shown is by what is most significant and inhumane to the morality of society. Violent crimes re not as frequently done statistically as seen on any source, rather is the incidents of non-violent crimes. This could also be viewed as a dark figure by media.

Media has a very strong influence when it comes to the public’s perception of the Criminal Justice System. With very high profile cases that we have seen in the past few years like Trayvon Martin case, Jodi Arias, Casey Anthony, and Michael Brown, the media has painted this bias image to protect societal views. News Papers have editors that know how to sell, their business, is a business and it revolves around selling papers; when papers were printed for the Trayvon Martin case most of the papers headlines were “White Males, Shoots Unarmed Black Teen.” Off the back the case was portrayed to the public as a racial issue, there for, those who were ill-informed (Most Americans) saw it as a racial issue and when the justice system favored Zimmerman, the view from the public on the justice system was it was not fair and uneven towards the black community. The system is not broken, but it needs time to work it’s a slow process it still has been only 40 plus years since the civil rights movements. With the media, we tend to drift towards what we relate to more when we watch the news we relate to more of what interest us, what goes with our political views, and moral codes. Media shapes our daily lives, and with the justice system, it becomes ever more persuading in altering or views on our Criminal Justice System. The Media wants to put out what is going

The information that is put out through the mass media is filtered, so it not only has pieces missing, it also has bias reporting’s. Obviously, they want you to believe what they believe, so they are going to brainwash you into thinking that. When it comes to crime, we examine it the exact same way the media does. That’s the goal. The media has shaped our perception on crime and criminals, to the point where we do not bother asking ourselves, why is this wrong? Why are people being sent to prison? Why are there some people who are getting harsher penalties for trivial crimes? It is not completely our fault. We are programmed to not think these thoughts. Society thinks, ‘‘well there are people who

Television and media dramas have also impacted my depiction on criminal justice far before I understood its purpose. It is true that media portrayal of criminal justice is far from the truth of reality, although my attitude towards that has progressively been different than most public attitudes. Most media influences are negative and make it seem like the justice system is unfair and injustice a lot of the times, but I do not believe that this is true in real life. I think this negativity, in a way, is good because it goes to show that people may be fearful of crimes and they also may be the slightest bit less likely to commit more crimes.

The media plays a substantial role in determining the amount of fear of crime that people hold. This comes from the fact that the media extensively and disproportionately cover crime stories. But how does

Throughout the years the relationship between crime and the media has been a matter of reoccurring controversy. Society as a whole consumes media in different forms, if it is from the television, radio, newspaper, or the Internet. A few individuals within society are aware of potential biases within the construction and the reporting of news stories from the media. All forms of news, no matter which source it originated from, will have a constructed newsworthy quality. There are many important reasons for why just one story is chosen for coverage when others are not. According to Reiner, Livingstone and Allen, they stated, “Events that appear to disrupt expectations [or are] deviant occurrences are the stuff of news” (Reiner et al. 2003 page

It is clear from the research reviewed that the media plays a significant role in shaping the publics’ perception and fear of crime. Along with this, it is also clear that the media has a significant impact on gender in relation to fear of crime. As the literature suggests, the relationship between the media and fear of crime is rather complex and research on this topic must take into consideration external variables which contribute to fear of crime. As this is such a vast area to research, after reviewing the current literature available on the topic, it is apparent there are some gaps as the focus tends to be on media representations of crime and fear of crime separately, rather than the direct relationship between them. There was also little information on whether media representation of certain crimes and victims impacts on the fear of crime in relation to gender. With the ever changing landscape of the media in contemporary society, research into this area is undoubtedly infinite and

The first article is on media, victims and crimes. The writer Chris Greer (2007) explores ways in which the media portrays the status of a victim and how different criminal acts are presented throughout the media, from some being over represented, unrepresented or misrepresented in news media discourse. The writer expresses how the media mostly covers high level crimes rather than smaller criminal acts which affect society socially and financially. Ferrell (2005: 150) states that the media presents ‘the criminal victimization of strangers rather than the dangerous intimacies of domestic or family conflict’, it can be argued that the media exaggerates crime to create moral panic, this can be a way of controlling public behaviour, and make them

How do the Media Influence our understandings about crime in postmodern society? Can they also influence levels of crime?

They affect public views by giving them the feeling that there is an many account of heinous crimes occurring when in reality it is exaggerated by media reports with constant stories of crime happening. There is a overrepresentation of crime in media reports due to nonofficial statistics used by the media. Providing violent crime report constantly can give off an impression on the public which may lead them to fear of victimization. Media although is a helpful tool it is often based off of non-official statistics which provide for inaccurate representations of crimes in the population. In order to provide yourself with proper knowledge following media reports of criminal offenses, an in-depth look into facts will provide a better outlook on the

An area that has caused much debate in criminology is the significance of the media and the effect is has on fear of crime.