How is Criminality Represented on Television Report (Research Paper Sample)

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Title: How is criminality represented on television?
CONTENTS
Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………3
Research Question……………………………………………………………………..3
Research (including methodology)…………………………………………………….3
Literature Review……………………………………………………………………...4
Findings……………………………………………………………………………......7
Discussion……………………………………………………………………………..7
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………10
Reference List………………………………………………………………………...11
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This research report evaluates the representation of criminality on television and, in particular, discusses the dissonance between television representation and the reality of criminality among Australia’s immigrant population. The paper first analyses the research methodology taken up in the project. It then reviews existing literature on the topic, showing various theoretical and practical foundations of analyses on representation of criminality on television. The findings and a discussion on thereon is then presented making the key argument of the project, that criminality is indeed inaccurately portrayed on television, and, such portrayals lead to considerable disunity and conflict in society.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Essentially, does the representation of television criminality among immigrants to Australia reflect their lived realities? Consequently, what is the effect of such reflection or lack thereof?
RESEARCH (INCLUDING METHODOLOGY)
Material for this research project was primarily obtained from assessment of studies that had been published in English and were publicly available. These were obtained through running variations and combinations of the search terms ‘criminality’ ‘media’ ‘television’ ‘minorities’ ‘refugees’ ‘boat people’ ‘immigrants’ ‘Australia’ and ‘violent crime’ through Google Scholar and the Library categories. The resulting articles were then sifted through to identify the most relevant to the present topic.
Additionally, multiple websites were searched including sites run by the Parliament of Australia, International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Australian Institute of Criminology and the Australian Psychological Society (APS),
In reviewing the literature, focus was placed on examining literature specifically relating to the analysis of criminality among immigrants. Additionally, this research project endeavoured to only make use of research and publications that were scientifically robust including those utilising control group(s).
LITERATURE REVIEW
Questions as to the effect of mass media on societal perception have been raised since at least the 1920’s (Lippmann, 1922, p. 29). A number of theories have been propounded to explain such effects of media, and especially television, the most important of them being the effects theories and the cultivation theories. Developments in academia have seen the latter gradually supersede the former. Consequently, a number of authors have applied the cultivation theory to the representation of criminality among minority communities. Such authors have been able to demonstrate marked disparities between the depiction of criminality in reality and on televisions and have proceeded to utilise cultivation theory to attempt to explain the effects of such disparity.
Effects theories gained prevalence in the early 1960’s in response to increasing rates of violent crime, mirroring the increase in depiction of violence on television in that era. These theories sought to explain the rise in violent crime by arguing that exposure to violence on television resulted in increased aggression and a greater propensity for violence (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). The authority here is Bandura, Ross & Ross who, in a series of experiments, observed that children replicate aggressive behaviour on exposure to videotapes of adults acting violently (1965).
This experiment, and other such experiments on effects theories have however been disputed by Ferguson & Savage (2011) who expose defects in research methodology that largely negate the results of such studies. They examine classic studies on effects theory and conclude that the best studies in this field consistently produce evidence of weak to negligible effects of television on aggression and criminality.
These effects theories have been supplanted by cultivation theories as espoused by Gerbner & Gross (1976). Gerbner argued that television subtly shapes viewer’s conception of social reality through the combined indirect action of continuous exposure to television over time. This theory hypothesized that since television showed violence and crime, it ‘cultivated’ the view that the world was much more violent than it was in actual fact.
The hypothesis was supported by empirical evidence which showed that light viewers (less than 2 hours a day) believed their weekly odds of being involved in violence were 1 in 100, whereas heavy viewers (more than 4 hours a day) thought the odds of the same to be 1 in 10 (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli, 1980). Further evidence showed that heavy viewers tended to see other peoples actions and motives more negatively; and, believed that an unduly high number of persons in society (5%) were involved in law enforcement whereas light viewers estimated a more realistic figure of 1% (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli, 1980).
This study was followed up by Romer, Jamieson, and Aday (2003) who found that "higher television news coverage of crime did indeed result in higher rates of fear of crime" (Romer et al, 99).
Gerbner (1998, 189) himself recognised the propensity of television to create and reinforce negative stereotypes through cultivation. This analysis has been followed up by Romer, Jamieson & DeCoteau (1998) who conclude that television engenders increased suspicion of neighbours and of African Americans and other non-white residents who are featured disproportionately in crime coverage as perpetrators of violent crime.
Stereotyping of minorities is a theme that is further developed by Coventry, Dawes, Moston and Palmer (2010). Coventry et al, in their study of Sudanese immigrants in Queensland, noted that violent crime was overrepresented on television whereas property crime was underrepresented. Immigrant communities in the Melbourne area were depicted as the racialised ‘other’ by the media who asserted that Sudanese immigrants were more prone to crime than Australians of Anglo-Saxon origin (2010, p 54).
Such stereotyping has the "unintended effect of contributing to the decline in community cohesion and to tensions between ethnic and racial groups" (Romer et al, 1998).
FINDINGS
The research conducted herein unmistakably shows that representations of criminality on television greatly differs from the reality. The study on Sudanese Australians in Queensland provides a vivid illustration of this fact. The facts here clearly show that immigrants are no more likely to take part in criminal conduct than Australians of Anglo-Saxon descent, and are in fact even shown to be less likely to take part in criminal endeavours. Television networks however paint a different picture of the fact...