The Goal Of Cultural Studies Scholars, Per Stuart Hall,

Since the 19th century, law enforcement and punishment has developed rapidly into the justice system we rely on today. Obscure laws that had become irrelevant in an industrial and post-industrial era were fast being replaced, and despite its lack of existence at the beginning of the 1800’s, policing standards are, today, high. The necessity for this drastic change in approach to crime has stemmed from the needs of industrial Britain, and the increased awareness of the public, and government, and their perception of crime and punishment. Rather than individual cases having a direct impact on these changes, in general they provide an insight as to the reactions of the public at the time, and along with the myriad of other cases, allow us

During the early 1980’s, crime rate in New York was at its peak. To prove this point, Gladwell gives an example of the Bernard Goetz shooting. Gladwell also highlights that Goetz was viewed as a hero and people celebrated when he was easily acquitted on charges of assault and attempted murder. Gladwell mentions this to give us an example of the incidents that used to take place on the subways

Society is frequently subjected to moral panics when any crime is committed. Humanity repeatedly blows crimes and incidents out of proportion until the entire society is somewhat controlled. Stuart Hall, in his book, ‘Policing the Crisis’ explained that “the media, in conjunction with the bourgeoisie, create moral panics in order to perpetrate fear and maintain control over society, as a whole.” (Hall, 2013, s. 1) Moral panics are created as a hazard and rising threat to shock both society and culture into changing the way it thinks and acts about problems in the real world. In this essay, moral panics will be looked at in detail with a specific interest in the case of James Bulger. There will too, be a focus on the influence the media,

Criminology is focused on the attempt to understand the meanings involved in social interaction. Theorists have tried to explain sociological behaviour by looking at the patterns created by individuals that commit crime. The August 2011 riots are pivotal in explaining criminological behaviour since official statistics show that 865 individuals were put in prison by the 9th September 2011 for offences related to the disorder between 6th and 9th August 2011. This is not to say that others were not involved, but that they have simply not been identified to date and may never be identified, however the evidence we do have about the recent riots gives us plenty to talk about. This essay will

An important issue for historians has been to understand the underlying causes of this criminal outbreak, whether it was mainly due to personal, ethnic or socio-economic factors. This essay will critically examine each of these explanations and argue that the actions of the Kellys and their supporters, and the reactions of the police can best be understood in terms of broad socio-economic developments in rural

There is debate whether youth crime is really a problem to society or just an issue that is constructed by society. It is argued that media has influenced society’s views on this matter by categorising young people as ‘folk devils’ (Banks, 2013). Certain groups, episodes and people that pose a threat to society’s values is when a moral panic takes place (Cohen, 1972). For example, this can be seen nowadays when there is no actual threat but old people get intimidated when they see large groups of young people hanging about on streets. These influences led to policy change, increasing the level of social control. This means that youth crime may be perceived as a moral panic rather than an actual problem.

Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group,

In recent years, the subject of crime has become an increasingly important theme of political, academic, and public debate. In particular, the media today is more focused on victims than it has ever been before. Through media representations of the ‘ideal victim’, this essay will subsequently show how the media are able to construct and re-affirm pre-existing traditional ideologies within the public realm. In effect, this assignment will critically assess the concept of an ‘ideal victim’ and show how the media have used this when describing crime.

Stuart Hall’s Cultural Identity and Diaspora focuses on the current issues of identity, cultural practices and cultural representations. He analyses the visual representations of Afro-Caribbean’s and challenges the notions of identity from African and European places. Hall then goes on to explain how Caribbean cinema has chosen to both, refute and embrace European influence. He presents two different forms of thinking about cultural identity. In the first position, Hall defines ‘cultural identity’ in terms of one, shared culture, which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common. The first model uses “stable, unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meanings’ to present the idea of shared culture, history, and ancestry rooted beneath ‘more superficial imposed ‘selves’” (Hall, 223).

The study of culture allows an individual to research and investigate the ways in which ‘culture’ can create and transform a being through individual and shared experiences, everyday life and power. The subject closely examines ways in which a person’s identify is shaped by their encounters with people, texts, institutions and overall understanding. Over time many cultural theorists have put forward many ideas and notions surrounding culture and its affect on one’s self identity, social identity and therefore subjectivity. Theorists such as, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler are a minor fraction of academics that believe that subjectivity is not inherent and naturally occurring but dynamic and adaptable according to society and our ever-changing culture. It is through the concepts of performativity and habitus that the ideas surrounding subjectivity being dynamic and fluid are presented.

In today 's society, culture is impacting our everyday life, experience and social relations; we are all categorized by our cultural “groups”, but this has changed rapidly throughout the years from one generation to the next. Cultural studies were developed in the late 1950’s, through the 1970’s by the British academic scholars. The British scholars were able engaged cultural analysis and the developed then transformed of the different fields, for example, politically, theoretically and empirically that are now represented around the world.

According to Theodor W. Adorno in The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, the culture industry is the entertainment business. “The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry” (1113). While people are consuming products from the entertainment manufacturers “with alertness even when the customer is distraught,” real life is not becoming indistinguishable from the movies (1113). The majority of consumers are able to distinguish products from the entertainment manufacturers such as movies, TV shows, radio and books from reality.

The importance given to certain crimes in the daily newspapers and other media sources shows us proof to the fact that crime is a topic that has the public’s interest and is a focus of their worries (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). It goes on to discuss the fact that crime as reported on by the media increases the public’s levels of fears and that there is little or no correlation to actual levels of violent crime in our society today.

Moral panics have been a topic of interest by those who are concerned with criminal and deviant behavior for many years. The term first appeared in criminology in a book written by Stan Cohen, in 1972 and involved a general misinterpretation of the situation, with an exaggerated reaction to a perceived threat, when the actual threat that is being offered (Cohen, S., 1972) (Walters, R., & Bradley, T., 2005). This essay will attempt to explore this concept in further detail, with regards to the literatures findings and explanations of the motives, processes and finer details of a moral panic. It will then explain the media’s role in perpetuating the cycle that is involved with a moral panic. This will include the justification that is used by those in media roles, and the “melodrama” (Anker 2005) (Wright, S., 2015) that is often used in the reports of the issues that give rise to the panics. Lastly, the outcomes of the media’s influential role in the process will be examined through the literature, and also through examples of moral panics in recent settings. This will hopefully provide an overall understanding of the development, perpetuation, and lasting effects that are involved in a moral panic.

In 1944, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, members of the Frankfurt School who fled from the Nazi Germany to the USA, were publishing their seminal essay ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’. Political critique, their thesis about the ideological domination of capitalism on cultural production is one that persists today and is regularly renewed (Mukerji & Schudson, 1991). Yet, since the first half of the twentieth century, evolutions have occurred within the ‘Culture Industry’, and while the theory – focusing primarily on the music and cinema industries – is still applicable to some features of contemporary ‘cultural industries’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2007), these changes require a contemporary reconsideration of it.