Crime is caused by the media?

Answer 1

Oh absolutely it is part of the problem! Some sickos out there see other crimes and think that if those people get recognition then so will I! Crime in this country will never get better because it is a money making industry! And then we can throw in the gun rights thing which makes it easy for crimes that would normally not have happened to be committed! Because there is no going back once that trigger has been pulled unlike if they didn't have a gun they might think about the fact that it is no where near as easy to rob a store or a person with a knife because you can actually defend yourself against it or run without getting shot in the back! The USA has the worst crime rate among developed nations and will not get better until things change! Also instituting harsher penalties for crimes committed with guns might help too!

Answer 2

The media certainly contributes. People are continually having the consumer society thrust down their throats via TV, celebrity magazines and other media sources, with twisted notions of desirable lifestyles and must-have luxury items.

A lifestyle out of the range of many people's means is portrayed as the norm, leading to some feeling driven to acquire by any means possible.

Fear of crime certainly is caused by the media by their over-reporting and sensationalising of the violent, the grotesque and the extreme in crime.

Answer 3

Whatever the cause is, the most serious, the kind that closes hospitals; white collar crime, doesn't even get mentioned. The media leaves us all in a state of fear from young thugs and anti social behaviour, while all the time billions are being robbed from us by the boss class, which 'is' destroying society!

Answer 4

This is going to sound very hare-brained and speculative - which it is, so don't imagine that I see this as a serious theory. But it's just a thought......

Let's consider that the media is more than merely a reflection of society. It's a feedback channel that exaggerates instances of extreme behaviour and presents them as normality.

The media thrives on news about people like Cho Seung-Hui (the guy who perpetrated the Virginia Tech massacre). If you take a Darwinist view, and see various media channels as organisms striving to sustain their own existence and propogate themselves, it would in fact be in their interest to encourage extreme behaviour in individuals so that they have more of this to feed on.

This isn't to say that these 'media organisms' were planned that way, or that there is a conspiracy. Selection pressures will cause only those media which are most successful to thrive. Individuals in the media didn't set out to create Cho, anymore than you could point to any specific individual cells in my own body and claim that they made me write this message. The power is in the pattern, not the individual building blocks.

Given that all the various media share so much information and are so interdependent, I'm not sure whether the 'competing organism' or the 'gaia' type model would be most appropriate - in the latter you consider all the media as a collective organism ensuring its own continued existence.

Yes, very tinfoil-hat of me but it's worth thinking about....

Answer 5

Crime has always been going on. Its just its reported more these days.

If there was a ban on the media reporting crime it would still go on. I often here older people say that crime was not as bad when they were young, but it was not reported as much back then and was as bad as it is now, maybe even worse.

Answer 6

hmmm... no.

Crime has been around so much longer than popular media your statement has no merit. Media EXPLOITS crime for ratings. Crime came first!

Answer 7

NO, crime is caused by people who cannot live by legitamit means, which is caused by idiot polititions and ridiculous policies, and the ultra rich (who should be shot)

Answer 8

crime is caused by media cause children watch and learn everything they see and hear and if they think its cool they will do it, even kill their own kind and racist comments will spread like the black death...specially music,music is really strong and if no1 can control it it will go nuts

Answer 9

Umbrellas cause rain. Every time I see people with umbrellas there is rain. I never see rain without umbrellas therefore umbrellas cause rain.

Answer 10

What do you mean?