What impacts and influences do the media have on crime and victimization within the United Kingdom?

Introduction

 

The British media have a strong hold of our lives in the UK as it is the media where we get our information from for everything that is happening in the world. The media is one of the most powerful sources we have and no matter what the subject matter is, we are sure to know about it, the media however also delves into people’s personal lives such as, there coverage and involvement with         murder cases. These murder cases could be a one read wonder or be on an ongoing story due to its high status coverage, significance or due to the nature of the story. The media like to cover a variety of angles when it comes to murder cases from the victims to the guilty party involved, with every news channel or paper portraying them in the sense of what they believe is the truth to get a nation to decide who is in the right and where the justice should truly lie.

 

In this report, I am going to be looking at the British media when they cover murder cases in the UK. I will be going through subjects such as the history of the British media to what the perfect victim is in the media’s eyes to get the perfect story.

I am going to be focusing on these massive subject areas to see what impacts and influence the British media have on crime and victimization in the United Kingdom.

 

 

(The Main Body)

 

The British Media: A brief history

The media is one of the most powerful and influential sources there are to be able to gather news, we get media from many sources such as, newspapers, magazines, news channels and the internet now from the 21^st century. The British media can cover everything we want to know from celebrity news to high profiled murder cases, but where did the media come from originally to get what we have today. The invention of the printing press in 1470 by William Caxton, was really the revolutionary start to the beginning of how people was able to obtain there news “The spread of news, rumour and gossip has been a central component of everyday life for hundreds of years. Religious tracts, pamphlets, posters, ballads and poems were in mass circulation from the introduction in England of the printing press by William Caxton in the 1470s,( (http://www.intute.ac.uk/themes/historical/britishnewsmedia.html).Newspapers, periodicals and books were amongst literature by the mid 1700’s and by the early 19^th century there were 52 London newspapers and by 1914 with the outbreak of world war one, newspapers continued to be popular due to that being the only means for people to find out news. It was in 1922, that Britain got its first radio programmes with the British Broadcasting company broadcasting experimental radio programmes. “The BBC began television broadcasts in England in 1932, and these broadcasts became a regular service, known as the BBC Television Service, in 1936,(http://www.intute.ac.uk/themes/historical/britishnewsmedia.html), which is where we got our news networks from originally due to the BBC broadcasting, which continues to this day. In the continuing years and centuries, the media was later expanded to websites and other new devices thanks to the invention of modern technology in the 20^th and 21^st century with more ways to broadcast news being developed and changed in order to fit in with Britain’s forever changing lifestyle and preferences, who knows what the future of the British media will turn out like. “Today the phrase ‘new media’ is meant to encompass the emergence of digital, computerised, or networked information and communication technologies. All the major news networks and media channels have websites which are regularly updated and free to access, a significant factor in the decline of newspaper readerships into the 21st century. At the present time we can only guess what the historians of the future will make of the early years of the internet,( http://www.intute.ac.uk/themes/historical/britishnewsmedia.html).”

 

The Ideal Victim in the Press

With the press covering a variety of murder cases from the controversial that may affect only a handful of people to the extreme cases that affect a nation, the press always has that one ideal victim that always get them the front page stories that everyone wants to read about and know the details for. The most seen victim of crime that the media always want to use is, children; cases of murder, kidnaps or lost children are always the hot topic that the media want to cover. With cases that involve children the press are always able to influence anyone who sees these stories as, it is always a case of emotional heart string pulling feelings that we always feel when it comes to these cases; the presses influence always ensure that people sit up and pay attention to help this child in any way possible. An example of the media’s influence in a child’s case that have influenced people to help would be the recent case of 3 year old Mikaeel Kular who vanished from his bed in the dead of night without a trace; with in such a short space of time the community where this young boy lived where on a vast and manic hunt to find this poor innocent child to bring him home safely, this way purely down to the presses influence to the find this child, the ideal victim in society’s eyes due to the sweet and inspiring innocence that a child represents. Another case of children being the ideal victim that has been for years a story that the British media have always wanted to show is the disappearance of British girl Madeline McCann, “Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) disappeared on the evening of Thursday, 3 May 2007, from her bed in an apartment in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal. She was on holiday there from the UK with her parents, twin siblings and a group of family friends and their children. The disappearance became what the Daily Telegraph called “the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history.” Her whereabouts remain unknown.The disappearance attracted sustained international interest and in the UK saturation coverage reminiscent of the death of Diana in 1997. The McCanns were subjected to intense scrutiny and false allegations of involvement in their daughter’s death, particularly in the tabloid press and on Twitter, which was just a year old when Madeleine went missing. They were awarded damages in 2008 against the Express Group and front-page apologies from the group’s newspapers. In 2011 they testified before the Leveson Inquiry into British press misconduct, lending support to those arguing for tighter press regulation in the UK, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann).This case of a child gone missing is always ones that we never stop seeing, for the media they want to portray a monstrous crime that we as society view as wrong due to the connotations of innocence and love that we feel for children no matter who they are. This case has been one that has been ongoing for years with people saying there have been multiple sightings of Madeline across the world and her parents doing many interviews to appeal to Madeline’s kidnappers. With the media always having the ideal values for the ideal victim, children, elderly and the innocent with always remain at the top of the list to portray for news coverage whether it be a short span or one that will be ongoing for years to come.

 

When the media and crime need to remain separate

With the British media aloud to produce any news story they see fit for publication, we get a lot of controversial pieces to do with the depths and lengths of a crime case, but there was one massive case in British media history that should have remained separate due to the media’s heavy involvement. This case was the Levinson enquiry,” The Leveson Inquiry is a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The Inquiry published the Leveson Report in November 2012, which reviewed the general culture and ethics of the British media, and made recommendations for a new, independent, body to replace the existing Press Complaints Commission, which would be recognised by the state through new laws. Part 2 of the inquiry has been deferred until after criminal prosecutions regarding events at the News of the World”,( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveson_Inquiry). This famous case involved members of the public, victims and celebrities have their private lives invaded by the British media hacking there phone records and retrieving private information from there. The media had a massive impact on the people of Britain with what had happened, but the media took things too far when it involved victims of crime in this inquest. “Amanda Jane “Milly” Dowler was a 13-year-old English girl who was abducted on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on 21 March 2002, and subsequently murdered. Her body was discovered on 18 September 2002. Dowler’s murder also played a significant role in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. It was revealed in 2011 that News of the Worldreporters had accessed her voicemail while she was reported missing. The resulting outcry from the British public contributed to the closure of the newspaper and led to a range of investigations and inquiries into phone hacking and media ethics in British media”,( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Milly_Dowler). With the media involving a murder victim and giving false hope to her family and friends that she was alive, it begged the question of the British media’s codes and ethics towards getting involved with crime cases in future. Having a case this raw and hard to deal with since it was a child’s death it showed that, the media’s impact and influence isn’t always needed in crime cases. As this case was an ongoing subject it proves that the media’s influence and impact on crime and victimization in the United Kingdom, is one that is strong and for some cases such as the ones displayed in the Levinson enquiry, that maybe the British media should have a limit of how much influence that can and should hold over these hard hitting cases no matter what the circumstances or the relevance of the case is to the public.

 

 

Findings/ Conclusion

 

Through my vast amount of research through the subject matters I have gone through, I believe that the British media have a strong and powerful impact and influence on crime and victimization in the United Kingdom. From the early beginnings of the media in Britain, it has always been a powerful and influential source as it was main way for us to gather news and still is to this day. When the media get involved with crime cases, I have found that they can cover it any angle or way that they see fit or want to portray the case due to their beliefs or the way they want the public to feel towards a case. The medias impact can be impacting and influential in crime cases as it can get more media coverage to get the public to help with information and help the police in any way they to solve the case, which is a good thing and it empowers a nation to come together and help the innocent and down trodden victims of crime in there hour of need, however there are times where the medias impact and influence is not needed at all and where codes and conducts are broken when it comes to moral and civil rights of a victim of crime. The Levenson enquiry was a case where the medias impact and influence went too far and the breach of private information was obtained wrongly in order for the media to get there next big story. The Medias impact and influence with crime and victimization can be seen as both a positive and negative thing due to the amount of influence and involvement they have with crimes. In conclusion, I can say that the British media will always be a strong and influence source that we cannot live without and their impact can be needed at times of help, however the media do need to realise the moral codes and conducts they must follow to allow these cases to be used as news; the media will and continue to be an impact and influence of crime and victimization in the United Kingdom for years to come.

 

 

1000 report assignment– full document of report

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