How Media Images Have an Affect on Everyday Life

Society is constantly bombarded with media images daily. In the field of Critical Media and Cultural Studies, it is generally understood that these media images do not simply bounce off the individual without penetration their psyche. Thus, the media images that we see have the power to affect our modes of thinking, our view of society, and dictate our actions. Though critical media and cultural studies involves itself deeply with the discussion of advertising and consumerism, it is known that the media also educates.

Mass media and popular culture serve to educate us about societal norms. The role of media is important and grand as it also educates society about complex topics such as crime, forensics, and law. Many scholars within the Critical Media and Cultural Studies discipline have commented on the power of media to educate and influence society’s view and perception of these subjects. These scholars have failed to approach Critical Media and Cultural Studies in the prescribed way. Critical Media and Cultural Studies acknowledges that although various platforms of media transmission may be more frequented or more popular, all forms of media essentially reinforce one another and fit together into a cohesive paradigm.

This paper will pick up where these other scholars have left off, in an attempt to pinpoint the relationship between the crime, forensics, and the law and media portrayals, but across platforms. This paper will also hope to construct a theoretical framework for the implications of media portrayals of these subjects in crime novels, news outlets, and television shows. In order to complete such an analysis, multiple questions will have to be answered within the confines of this paper. Each of the three chosen platforms–crime novels, news outlets, and televisions shows–will be dissected to show what perceptions they are creating as it relates to crime, forensics, and the law. Secondly, this research will show how it affects societal behavior. Lastly, from the two previous questions, a framework will be constructed using both textual examples and critical media theories to construct a more thorough relationship between media and the complex systems of crime and law.

As aforementioned, the connection between crime and law and the portrayals of these subjects in the media cannot be overlooked. This paper will show that crime novels, news outlets, and televisions shows all play an integral part in the transmission of ideas about crime and the legal system. This fact is a given. This paper will also show that the media portrayals of crime and the legal system, through these three modes, serve three key functions: deterrent, authority, and catharsis.

Key theories within Critical Media and Cultural Studies, such as the theory of cultivation and the theory go hegemony, will show that media images are not as sporadic as they seem. They will show that media images have a purpose and an agenda apart from advertising. Other theories such as the conglomeration of media will show that an analysis of cultural representations cannot isolate one form of media as a representative sample and a comprehensive analysis must include multiple media platforms as this paper will attempt to do.

Through these analysis, textual examples, and theories it will be shown that media, regardless of its aims and intentions, creates cultural and society implications that should be addressed. Not only do media images affect our perceptions of crime, forensics, and law, but the resulting implications, when examined as a whole, create a cyclical framework for the strategic and successful containment of society.

Annotated Bibliography

Abramsky, Sasha. 2002. "Crime as America's Pop Culture." Chronicle Of Higher Education 49, no. 12: B11. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. Accessed November 15, 2014. Abramsky uses the rise in crime rates and the high levels of incarceration, among not only minority race but society as a whole, as the backbone of her argument. She describes America as being fixated on all crimes from the heinous to the mundane. America’s high incarceration rates are thus a natural extension of our obsession with crime, in particular our obsession with the “non-stop coverage of crime.” Abramsky’s analysis of the ubiquitousness of crime in pop culture creates a societal fear of criminals and an overwhelming and disproportionate sense of crime in ones surrounding neighborhoods. Thus, the high incarceration rates of society are not perceived as an inherent flaw in the system but indeed the natural result of a world that is evil and riddled with criminals, a fact that keeps society contained and obedient to the legal code.

Collis, Christy, and Jason Bainbridge. 2005. "Introduction—Popular Cultures and the Law." Continuum: Journal Of Media & Cultural Studies 19, no. 2: 159-164. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. Accessed November 16, 2014. doi: 10.1080/10304310500084335. The analysis of popular culture and the law as presented by Collis and Bainbridge offers both the foundational structure for this study and presents the importance of this study. Collins and Bainbridge state two key concepts found within the article: 1) that “law is cultural” and 2) that the complexities of the intersection of law go past mere representation. Thus, Collis and Bainbridge develop a methodology for analyzing law and legal frameworks through the lens of popular culture. This article also mentions the term “legal consciousness”, a term that connotes the memory of past legal proceedings, the conceptualization of current legal frameworks as influenced by media, and the future implications of this influence. This source states that law and popular culture are intertwined but does not go so far as to state how one affects the other, as this study will attempt to do.

Dowler, Kenneth. 2003. “Media Consumption and Public Attitudes Toward Crime and Justice: The Relationship Between Fear of Crime, Punitive Attitudes, and Perceived Police Effectiveness.” Journal Of Criminal Justice And Popular Culture 10 (2): 109-126. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol10is2/dowler.pdf. Dowler’s examination of the relationship between media consumption and public attires towards crime and justice exemplify two key concepts with this paper. Kenneth describes how the prevalence of crime in news media leads to an increased fear of crime and criminals. The sensationalization of crime breeds fear and panic. This in turn causes people to become more vigilant in their daily attitudes and to adopt more abrasive attitudes to protect themselves from these crimes and the criminals that committee them. This article clearly shows the link between media consumption and the adoption of fearful attitudes. What this article fails to investigate the effects of other media platforms, such as television shows and crime novels, platforms that are inexplicably linked and woven together to create a national consciousness about crime, forensics, and the legal system.

Dowler, Kenneth, Thomas Fleming, and Stephen L. Muzzatti. 2006. "Constructing Crime: Media, Crime, and Popular Culture." Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 48 (6): 837-865. Accessed November 14, 2014. http://ezproxy.rollins.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/216117268?accountid=13584. Dowler’s study of popular culture, in particular of the show CSI, delivers terminology that is crucial to this study of the effect of media on the conceptualization of crime, forensics, and the legal system. This source details the CSI Effect, the phenomena affecting “real life crime victims and jury members” into believing the innovative science of the crime shows and forensics can catch the assailants easily. This effect is so profound that it has affected conviction rates in crimes without forensic evidence. Hence, not only does media deliver misconceptions about the nature of forensics in relation to crime but also provides a deterrent to crime: the deterrent that forensics and scientific evidence gathering procedures prevent potential criminals from attempting to carry out the perfect crime.

Goodman, Douglas J. "Approaches to Law and Popular Culture." Law & Social Inquiry 31, no. 3 (Summer2006 2006): 757-784. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. Accessed November 15, 2014. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-4469.2006.00029.x. Goodman’s analysis, like that of Collis and Bainbridge, provides more theoretical background for the construction of this essay. The main tenets of his argument rest in a key concept of critical media and cultural studies: the spectrum flowing from micro levels and macro levels of society. Goodman breaks the transmission of beliefs and attitudes about law through popular culture into three stages: “semiotic, transmission, and institutional.” Each stage displays how law and the legal system are displayed in popular culture mostly through the medium of popular culture. However, Goodman’s conclusion of this article is possibly the most integral portion of his analysis. He concludes that portrayal of law through media creates wavering support of the legal system, one facet of society that creates a contained and controlled populace by using media.

Morgan, Michael, and James Shanahan. 2010. “The State of Cultivation.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 54 (2): 337-355. Accessed November 16, 2014. doi: 10.1080/08838151003735018. Morgan and Shanahan’s critical analysis of media presents “one of the three most cited theories in mass communication research published in key scholarly journals from 1956 to 2000.” This theory is the cultivation theory. Cultivation theory states that the media that you consume affects one’s worldview. In turn, the prevalent worldview is then co-opted by media producers and spouted back at the masses creating a cyclical model of media production and consumption. Cultivation theory, along with the theory of hegemony and the power of media conglomerates, displays how the over saturation of different media platforms–in this study crime novels, news outlets, and television shows and movies–are sources of societal control and containment. These media sources simultaneously deter individuals from crime, embed society with unwavering faith in the justice system, and give individuals an emotional outlet for gruesome crimes.