Media Criminology and Society

📋 Course Outline

1. Introduction to Media Criminology
2. Research Examples at UON
3. Main Concepts Overview
4. Media Representations and Impact
5. Agenda-Setting and Framing

📖 1. Introduction to Media Criminology

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Media Criminology: A sub-discipline of criminology examining representations of crime across various media forms, including news, film, TV, and social media. It relates media portrayal to broader understandings of crime and deviance.
• Media-Crime Nexus: The connections between crime and media influence that shape societal definitions and problems of crime and deviance, including how certain acts and populations become criminalised through media representation.
• Social Constructivism: The idea that media presents a version of reality, not reality itself, and that social problems related to law and order are constructed based on what humans deem important.

📝 Essential Points

• Media criminology studies crime depiction across media types such as news, film, TV, and social media.
• It employs criminological and sociological theories to analyze how media shapes perceptions of crime, class, gender, and race.
• The course focuses on understanding media influences through agenda-setting and framing.
• Media representations influence public discourse on crime, criminality, and victimhood by shaping social control and power dynamics.