Criminology: Media, Power, and the Perception of Criminal Justice

This criminology essay examines the intricate relationship between media, crime, and politics, arguing that powerful entities often manipulate crime narratives to serve their interests. It highlights how victims are increasingly turning to social media for justice, challenging the traditional media's commercialized approach to crime reporting. The essay discusses the role of media in shaping public perception of crime, emphasizing how corporate crimes and white-collar offenses are often downplayed, while physical crimes receive significant attention. It explores how power dynamics, involving politicians, media, and corporations, influence the understanding of crime and justice. The analysis also touches upon the mystification of ideologies and the manipulation of crime perception, leading to a skewed focus on specific types of criminal activities. The essay references various studies and publications to support its arguments, offering insights into the evolving landscape of crime, media, and justice in contemporary society. The essay concludes by emphasizing how the powerful manipulate crime perception by mystifying ideologies.

Running head: CRIMINOLOGY
Criminology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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There has been an everlasting relationship between media, crime and politics. Critics
have always argued that the powerful suppresses the weak and in the same way powerful
politicians and media personnel suppress the victims of crime. The politicians and modern day
media designs polices and portray crime in such a way as to trigger their own self interest rather
than taking an initiative to address the interest and needs of the victims. There has been various
evidence which suggests that victims no longer have their trust in traditional media to gain
access to justice as they know that media only seeks to commercialize their problems to make
profit. These victims are now choosing other platforms to seek justice such as social media
which has gain huge popularity during the latter part of the previous decade
In Fileborn, B. (2016). ‘Justice 2.0: Street harassment victims’ use of social media
and online activism as sites of informal justice’. British Journal of Criminology, the author
provides a clear argument that victims of street harassment are now using social media as well as
online activism in order to seek informal justice. According to Trottier and Fuchs (2014) the
traditional and formal system of criminal justice has been subjected to long and problematic
history with respect to sexual violence. However there have also been several studies conducted
which provide the conclusion that media has a significant role to pay towards solving providing
criminal justice and historically it has acted as the primary public source of providing
information. The primary reason for this was that people do not interact as much as they use to
do in the past and therefore significantly rely on media to be informed about their surroundings.
This feature of the society has given the media immense power as the public primarily believe
whatever they have been showed by the media. There is little if any effort made by a common
man to find out whether what the media is depicting is true. This nature of the society as made
media companies owned by private firms and politicians to portray to the society about a

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situation in a way which financially and politically beneficial to them. The characteristic of
media however has been highlight in the last few years and which the advent and popularity of
social media the reliability of victims on traditional media to gain justice is declining. In
Andrews, Brewster and Day (2016) the author argues that social media provides a far better than
traditional media to share their problems as individual control in social media is much more and
there is very less scope of commercialization and manipulation. The issues related to sexual
crime is dealt vey sympathetically in social media unlike that of traditional media where the facts
provided by the victims are manipulated and altered according to the interest of the media firms
as well as politicians. It has been argued by Surette (2014) that even social media
commercializes criminal stories through various places and blogs. However the extent to which
manipulation of facts in done in traditional media to secure personal interest is much more than
that of social media even.
In Box (1983) ‘Crime, power and ideological mystification’. In Power, Crime and
Mystification. Routledge the author discusses about crime, power and ideology mystification. It
has been provided by the book that we are always made Rape, Robbery, Murder, wounding, theft
and vandalism are the criminal activities which the society is primarily bothered about. This is
because the politicians and the media provide significant emphasis on these types of crime.
According to Swanson and Frederick, (2015) physical crime is the most significant threat which
is posed to the society by criminals. However the argument is not applicable on the modern day
society. This is because the society has become capitalistic and the primary reason from crime in
the society is economic status. As provided by Paternoster (2016) criminal behavior is initiated
when the individuals are not able to achieve a strong economic position in the society which is
essential for the purpose of gaining respect and proper treatment. Thus the primary stimulator of

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crime in the society is the need of money. Corporate crimes are those white collar crimes which
are targeted to centralize the major wealth of the economy in certain hand (Fuchs, C., 2017).
These kinds of criminal activities are rarely highlighted by the media or the politicians as they
involve the most powerful individuals of the society. Corporate crimes are as much a threat to
the society as any other physical crime if not more. They are the primary catalyst of stimulating
criminal behavior. Lower class and middle class group has to indulge in of criminal activities in
the pursuit of an economic status as the wealth is concentrated in the upper class of the society.
In addition power is used to mystify the ideologies of crime and hide the effects of corporate
criminal activities from the society.
The media and politicians use their position and influence towards making the society
focus on only physical criminal activity. Due to such efforts of the powerful group, the society
perceive the criminal activities as only those which involve acts like theft, murder, assault or
rape. Individuals committing such activities are imposed with fines as well is physical
punishment like imprisonment. However only in rarest of corporate crimes does an individual is
provided with physical punishment and often escapes by paying fines which are much less than
what they have gained through the fraud. The directors of corporate organizations are in a
position to defraud the public as they have supreme control over their funds. Such a situation
provides them with the opportunity to defraud the public by misdirecting their funds for personal
interest under the protection of corporate veil. Still the society does not perceive such activities
as a major threat and these while collar criminal roan free in the society with pride. In addition it
has also been provided by Chaney and Robertson (2014) that those who do not have power are
made victim of the powerful through support the media and police and the society also perceive
them as criminals as they have little action to defend their position.

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Thus it can be concluded from the above discussion that the powerful manipulates the
way in which crime is perceived by the society by mystifying ideologies. These powerful groups
generally consist of high class businessmen, politicians and the media. It was always believed
that media was the best support which a common individual may get in case he or she is the
victim of any criminal activity. However capitalism and commercialization has converted media
into a commercial organization with the only motive of making profit.

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References
Andrews, S., Brewster, B. and Day, T., 2016, July. Organised crime and social media: detecting
and corroborating weak signals of human trafficking online. In International Conference on
Conceptual Structures (pp. 137-150). Springer International Publishing.
Box, S. (1983). ‘Crime, power and ideological mystification’. In Power, Crime and
Mystification. Routledge.
Chaney, C. and Robertson, R.V., 2014. " Can We All Get Along?" Blacks' Historical and
Contemporary (In) Justice With Law Enforcement. Western Journal of Black Studies, 38(2),
p.108.
Cullen, F.T., Cavender, G., Maakestad, W.J. and Benson, M.L., 2014. Corporate crime under
attack: The fight to criminalize business violence. Routledge.
Fileborn, B. (2016). ‘Justice 2.0: Street harassment victims’ use of social media and online
activism as sites of informal justice’. British Journal of Criminology
Fuchs, C., 2017. Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Paternoster, R., 2016. Deterring Corporate Crime. Criminology & Public Policy, 15(2), pp.383-
386.
Surette, R., 2014. Media, crime, and criminal justice. Nelson Education.
Swanson, D.L. and Frederick, W.C., 2015. Are business schools silent partners in corporate
crime?. Business, Capitalism and Corporate Citizenship: A Collection of Seminal Essays, p.74.
Trottier, D. and Fuchs, C. eds., 2014. Social media, politics and the state: Protests, revolutions,
riots, crime and policing in the age of facebook, twitter and youtube (Vol. 16). Routledge.

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