Moral panic theory integrates into its analysis an examination of the ways in which crime and crime related policies are presented in the media, through the dominant frames and narratives - especially in the news.24 Like moral panic theory the work
of Chibnall (1977) is seen to be a foundational text for analysing crime in the news (see Greer 2010). Chibnall pinpoints key features of crime news including what he calls the ‘professional news imperatives’ of journalism such as ‘immediacy, dramatization, personalization, simplification, titillation, conventionalism,
24 The work of the Glasgow Media School and the Birmingham Centre for Cultural Studies were incredibly
4. The media and the policy process structured access and novelty’ 25 (1997 cited in Greer 2010 at p. 203). It is these frames Chibnall argues that create the dramatic and sensationalised ways in which crime news is presented.
Weatherburn (2004), Surette (1998) and other commentators have taken up these points about the framing of crime news arguing that established news frames and narratives about crime and criminal justice are problematic since they overwhelmingly present a partial picture of crime that emphasises its dramatic, sensational and oddball aspects which, are out of proportion to their actual incidence (Weatherburn 2004, p.3). Weatherburn also contends that the crimes that make it into the newspaper or onto the television such as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and so on, constitute only a very small part of what are generally mundane and routine everyday criminal actions that involve many people: shoplifting, non-payment of infringement notices, failure to pay the correct fare on a bus or train, or exaggerated insurance claims (Weatherburn D. 2006). As criminologist Ray Surette says, ‘learning about criminal justice from the news media is analogous to learning geology from volcanic eruptions’ (Surette 1998, p.80).
Media analysts see the use of frames and narratives as part of an established orthodoxy of journalism practice, which cuts across all aspects of the work and as such it is considered to be part of the doxa and habitus of journalism (Bourdieu 1979; Cottle 2003; Davis 2003). Information is presented in established ways, and people, places, events and story lines are reworked into defined narrow sets of narratives (Bird and Dardenne 1997; Cottle 2003). In turn, narratives and frames of news stories are seen to play a key role in shaping the way stories are both presented and received by audiences (Jacobs 1996 cited in Cottle 2003, at p.15). According to Tiffen this leads to a situation where the facts are sometimes moulded to fit the dominant story frames. As he states:
Journalists know in advance the type of story they are looking for. Even if the details remain to be confirmed, the likely frame for the coverage is already known. Journalists, politicians, and their staffs collectively constitute an
25 Similarly, in journalism studies what constitutes ‘news’ includes timeliness, proximity (how close to home,
prominence/celebrity, impact ie. implications, levels of conflict/drama, currency/topicality, the unusual, whimsical or oddball (source UTS Journalism handout Sally White, 1991 Reporting in Australia).
industry continually generating its own shorthand labels and stereotypes (Tiffen 2004, p.1192).
Yet, as we shall see in the next section, despite the fact journalism practices are well understood, governments are seen to react too readily to dramatic, sensational news frames, they engage in the politics of ‘law and order’. In so doing, they ignore countervailing research and evidence, which, it is argued, would lead to them instead to different kinds of policy reforms (Hogg & Brown 1998; Surette 1998; Weatherburn 2004).
Sociological and criminological studies have argued that there is a dominant set of frames and narratives of young people and youth sub cultures that permeate the media and shape the public’s views of young people. According to Pearson (1983) this narrow range of representations of young people is not new. In his influential book Hooligans: A History of Respectable Fears each generation refers to young people as the worst ever: ill mannered and unruly. Pearson argues that the media often refer to a ‘golden age’ of how young people behaved in the past and this is then invoked as a comparative tool to highlight the shortcomings of today’s young people (Pearson 1983).
Muncie (2009) outlines the dominant themes in media reporting of young people. These, he argues include the depiction of youth as dangerous risk-takers, a danger to themselves and others, but also vulnerable due to their immaturity and lack of a sense of responsibility (p. 9). Muncie (2009) also argues that young people have become a persistent source of social anxiety and are repeatedly identified in moral panics as a threat or danger to existing social order – they are recurring ‘folk devils’ (Muncie 2009, p.126). Other themes identified in a range of literature in the representation of young people in the media include the ideas that: youth are both monsters and victims of monsters; evil and innocent; as no-hopers or atypically
high achievers, and youth culture is depicted as strange and threatening. In addition,
youth is considered to be an important period of psychological and physical development and is often depicted as a period of difficult transition between childhood and adulthood where problems develop as a result of that transition. Stories are framed in terms of what young people lack in their path to adult
4. The media and the policy process maturity, judgment and adult skills (see ACIJ 1992; Critcher 2003; Jewkes 2004; White and Wyn 2008). The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism found that youth were negatively associated with ‘youth gangs’ and criminal activity in a large proportion of media of stories about youth (AICJ 2002).
Interestingly young women tend not to make it into the crime related news except when there are particular scare stories about young women as violent, binge drinking ladettes who transgress traditional gender norms (Carrington and Pereira 2009; Hardy 2009; Lumby 1997). Otherwise the majority of stories relate to the vulnerability of young women as victims of sexual assault, or as ‘at risk’ in other ways (Carrington and Pereira 2009; Lumby 1997).
An Australian study conducted by Bolzan (2003) examined the representation of young people in the media and community attitudes. The research included a time- series content analysis of a variety of media in a number of states, and interviews with members of the community including young people (Bolzan 2003). Bolzan’s research found that there were diverse discursive themes, about youth in the media and to some extent her findings challenge the kinds of research findings outlined above. For instance, she found that there was a surprising lack of stories about young people and crime, and the only exception to this was media coverage in the Northern Territory where crime stories, especially about indigenous youth, predominated (Bolzan 2003 p.68). The content analysis found stories were typified by reporting that voiced concern about problems facing young people for example, stories about suicide, lack of opportunities, lack of appropriate gender roles for young men and women (p.70). Although, positive stories tended to portray young people as out of the ordinary, innovative, enthusiastic and achieving their goals (2003, p.70). Many stories also highlighted the ways in which adults contributed to these problems due to lack of supervision, training and lack of parental responsibility (Bolzan 2003, pp.72/73). Bolzan’s study also found that community attitudes to young people were affected by audience experience. Those adults who had little or no contact with young people were more ‘likely to be influenced by negative media reports about young people than those adults who had regular contact with them (2003, p. ix). Interestingly, in her interviews with community
members, “what politicians say”, barely registered at all as an influence on attitudes to young people (Bolzan 2003, p. ix).
A consistent finding of studies of young people and the media is that the voices of young people are noticeably absent from the media and they are generally powerless to discredit the stories about them, or to have the opportunity to offer alternative accounts (Bolzan 2003; Muncie 2009; White and Wyn 2008).