Media and Crime: Why is The 21st Century So Intrigued By Criminality?
Crime – whether true or fictional – has been popular in the media since the 17h century. But why? It first blew up with Penny Dreadfuls, a newspaper that rose in the ranks thanks to the rising number of literate working-class citizens. Even then, newspapers would twist stories to make them more gruesome and even create their own grizzly stories right from scratch. This is not so different from now.
How many times have you been deterred from watching a certain movie or TV show, whether it be based on fact or fiction, because it contains acts of extreme violence or extreme criminal behavior? Thousands of people do. Yet the very fact that these things exist, along with articles and social media accounts, shows a haunting fascination with the criminal world.
How Does Media Portray Crime?
Criminologist David Garland argues that knowledge and opinions of crime and the criminal justice system are based upon “collective representations rather than accurate information.” So, people base their views and opinions on media that they consume, media that is sometimes completely fictional. This warp between the media and crime creates an unbalance in what people perceive as reality.
Another Criminologist, Robert Reiner, summarises the media representations of crime into five simple points:
News and Fiction focus overwhelmingly on serious violent crime. The proportion of different crimes represented is the complete opposite of those officially reported in statistics!
Media offenders are often older and hold a higher socio-economic status than in reality.
The Media portrays the risk of being a victim of a crime much higher than it truly is and suggests the risk of being a victim of a more serious crime (violent) is higher than being at risk of a less serious crime. Again, this goes against official statistics. Justice Analytical Services found that people living in Scotland viewed the risk of being a victim of crime as 2-3 times higher than actual risk, showing a large gap between reality and perceptions!
Media portrayals of the police and criminal justice system are largely positive.
Stories are often focused on the victims – white middle-class women and children being overrepresented.
These five points show how the media can easily influence the population and create false senses of reality, when things actually aren’t as they appear on TV. So why do people have such a morbid fascination with something that makes them so paranoid?
Why is True Crime so Popular in the Media?
One simple answer is that people are curious. It is in our nature to simply want to make sense of the world, whether that be the good or the bad, and crime is no exception. Just like the way that you are reading this now, people want to know the answers to things, no matter how morbid it may get. Watching true crime shows, reading stories and articles about killers and criminals piques people’s interests as they try to understand what they are reading and to get into the mind of a killer, whether in order to protect themselves and loved ones from threats, or even just to know the answers that cannot be otherwise discovered. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it is curiosity that keeps us as human beings learning more about each other and the complex world that we live in.
The excitement of taboo also plays a very key role. There is something intriguing about watching other people do things that you would never dream of doing yourself, and so it is interesting to see someone acting out of the norms that we are used to. Psychologist Dr. Meg Arroll stated, “true crime stories allow us to explore the darker side of nature in a safe way.” The ‘forbidden thinking’ theory argues that humans have dark impulses that true crime shows provide an outlet for without having the consequences, relieving us of the pressure of acting in such a way.
Women also tend to be more fascinated by crime stories in the media than men. In 2010, a study by the University of Illinois found that 70% of Amazon true crime book ratings are by women. The majority of these stories feature ways to escape killers, ways to fight off criminals as mainly female protagonists. Therefore, the obsession may not be as morbid as people assume – it could come from a place of self-defense and self-preservation. Due to women being more fearful of crime, they are more likely to be drawn to stories to take them as lessons.
Works Cited
“Crime and Media.” The SCCJR, 2022, www.sccjr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/17-Crime-and-Media-2022.pdf.
“Why Are We So Obsessed with True Crime?” University of Derby, 2021, www.derby.ac.uk/magazine/issue-11/why-are-we-so-obsessed-with-true-crime/.
“Why Are We So Obsessed with True Crime?” Science Focus, 9 Nov. 2020, www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-are-we-so-obsessed-with-true-crime/.
Baker, Karen. “Psychology of True Crime Obsession.” Mind and Fashion, 4 Dec. 2022, mindandfashion.com/2022/12/04/psychology-of-true-crime-obsession/.
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