- A small group of people commit a crime.
- The media’s values pick up on an ‘interesting story’ and a ‘problem group’ is identified.
- The media produce headlines, stories and photographs to interest readers and viewers.
- To maintain readers’ interest, the crime is taken out of context through exaggerated reporting.
- People become scared of the people committing the crime, so join the people committing crime.
- A moral panic develops. Public concern is aroused at the real or imaginary ‘threat’ to society; the media campaign for ‘action’ to be taken against this perceived threat.
- More social control – politicians, police and magistrates respond to public demand as shown in the media, and law-and-order campaigns are begun to stamp down hard with deviants.
- More crime happens as people are scared of it, so more people carry knives etc to protect themselves, and the process repeats.
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Wilkins' Media Amplification Spiral
The media amplification spiral is a theory that suggests that mass media take issues out of context, and therefore cause a long chain of events from the one exaggerated story, for example knife crime.
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