978-1285459059 Chapter 10 Part 1

Unlock access to all the studying documents.

View Full Document

Chapter 10

New Media, Crime, and Justice

Chapter Objectives

After reading Chapter 10, students should:

1. appreciate the difference between legacy media and new media

2. recognize the social effects and concerns related to new media

3. have an overview of the ways new media, crime, and justice intersect

4. comprehend how new media broadens criminality and encourages performance

crimes

5. see how new media has been adopted by law enforcement, the courts, and corrections

Chapter Outline

I. New Media, Crime, and Justice

a. Changes in society associated with new media dominate social experiences and

today many people communicate and compete for attention through their media

more often than in their face-to-face encounters with people

i. The quip “Everyone wants their fifteen gigabytes of fame” describes one

way that new media have changed society

b. This change has had significant effects on crime and justice

c. The key characteristic of new media that underlies the social changes is that new

media’s content is composed of digital information that is quickly and easily

shared among large audiences

d. The existence of new media, in particular social media has resulted in broad

cultural changes in how the public receives and process information and

understands and interacts with the world

i. People today communicate with a large circle of people more frequently

but less often in face-to-face encounters

ii. Our personal social networks are broader but shallower

iii. More and more how we define ourselves and how others define us are

determined in the digital world of new media

iv. In terms of knowledge about the world, enormous amounts of information

and people are accessible

1. New media provide access to the personal diaries, photo albums,

and home movies of millions of people, most of it freely provided

by the subjects

2. The early 21st century is an era of unprecedented self-surveillance

where people voluntarily place themselves open to the voyeuristic

gaze of others

v. Multi-function new media devices have permanently altered the “media

creation-individual consumption” relationship so that in contemporary

media the content consumption is a participatory activity

1. People no longer just consume media content but also participate

in how news stories are covered and entertainment is crafted

e. The world of crime and criminal justice has not been immune to these changes

i. The most obvious is that new media allow the public to not only watch

crime and justice but to participate in criminal justice

ii. This chapter explores some of the ways that new media have altered:

iii. New media provide platforms for crime related content to influence

perceptions and attitudes about crime and justice and in the process to

entertain within an emergent “mediated reality”

1. Within this mediated reality, the ability of traditional criminal

justice agencies to maintain ownership of crime issues and events

is more difficult than in the past

2. The social construction of crime and justice in new media:

a. Is a more fluid, multi-directional process

b. Sees multiple social constructions emerge and compete,

each adopted by different and devoted segments of the

audience

iv. New media in the form of the Internet and social media are accepted parts

of the criminal justice system

1. Agencies throughout the justice system have incorporated the

information sharing and distribution capabilities of new media in

investigations and case processing

a. the issuing of warrants, complaints, and discovery requests

b. the preservation and presentation of evidence

c. the conducting of post-conviction motions and hearings

2. However, new media are double-edged swords

a. New media means new ways to commit old crimes and

opportunities to commit entirely new types of crimes

i. Example: Cybercrime has become a leading

criminal justice concern (see Box 10.1).

b. New media also distribute false information as quickly as

accurate information and extend the reach and impact of

rumors

i. Examples: The spread of unsubstantiated rumors

through YouTube, Facebook, and online news

outlets such as followed recent school shootings

f. New Media, Criminality, and Victimization

i. New media effects on criminality happen in five ways:

1. Old Crimes in New Ways: New media provide new ways to

commit old types of crime

a. Examples:

i. Terrorism has been a means of displaying political

violence for over 2,000 years

1. New media has altered:

a. How acts of terror are committed

i. shown by cyber-attacks that

allow both state and non-state

terrorist groups to attack

governments, organizations,

and individuals who have an

online presence

b. The strategic goals of terrorists

i. linked to the reach and

control of the content that

new social media affords

terrorist groups

2. New media allow:

a. Global recruitment of members

i. Terrorist messages can be

tailored for near and distant

audiences, victims, enemies,

and supporters

b. Dissemination of propaganda

i. Examples include the regular

online posting of videos of

terrorism, the use of mobile

phones to organize and carry

out terrorism, and the

numerous terrorist related

Internet sites

c. Crime sourcing: Described as taking

a portion of a criminal act and

outsourcing it to a crowd of either

witting or unwitting individuals

i. Large numbers of strangers

can be recruited to help

commit a crime

ii. Property and white collar crimes (such as theft and

fraud) are forecast to be the most significant crime

problem associated with new media as hackers,

spies, organized crime, and terrorists as well as

common criminals tap in

1. Social media and global networks have

made it easier for identity thieves to obtain

information like:

a. Names

b. Addresses

c. dates-of-birth

d. work and school locations

e. phone numbers

f. additional personal information

iii. Social media combined with mobile phones have

provided mechanisms to arrange riots, gang fights,

and shoplifting sprees in a new fashion

1. Example: recent riots in the United

Kingdom were coordinated through social

media

iv. Theft

v. “Cyber–bullying” has become recognized as a

unique new form of social harassment with its own:

1. pernicious dynamics of anonymity

2. broad social exposure

3. continuous threats

a. makes social media based “peer–to–

peer” bullying more harmful than the

older face-to-face schoolyard version

vi. Social media have made stalking a distant, virtual

experience where stalkers can follow from afar and

digitally drop in and out of someone’s life

vii. Criminals also utilize new media capabilities to

select and maneuver their victims

1. Example: Public concern regarding new

media and victimization involves the use of

the Internet by sexual predators

a. In 2009, when MySpace removed

90,000 sex offenders from its site,

more than 8,000 of them

immediately reappeared on

Facebook

b. Despite public concern and periodic

moral panics, little actual research

has been conducted on sexually

predatory males, called “travelers” in

the literature, who solicit children

online, establish virtual relationships,

and arrange meetings for sex

2. The use of new media to reach victims is not

limited to sexual crimes. Other examples

include:

a. Murderers

b. Burglars have identified unoccupied

homes from Internet and social

media provided information

b. Counter efforts by law enforcement include online

undercover child sex stings where law enforcement agents

place ads on social networking sites soliciting sexual

encounters with children or child pornography and pose as

either children or as parents looking to prostitute their

children

i. These efforts have produced popular infotainment

programming

ii. How effective these efforts are at deterrence is not

known

1. the fact that some offenders have been

caught more than once by the same ploy is

not encouraging

2. New Media and New Crime: New media provide new types of

crime to commit

a. Example: the social media generated phenomena of “flash

mobs” (which sometimes turn criminogenic)

i. Coordinated via social media to appear as a

seemingly spontaneous activity, flash mobs involve

the convergence of a large number of strangers at an

agreed upon time and place to perform some agreed

upon behavior

ii. Initially benign activities such as dancing or singing

would seemingly spontaneously ‘break out’ among

the assembled mob

iii. However, riots and “flash mob” shoplifting and

vandalism sprees have also been generated

b. In new media when a crime occurs is a debatable issue

i. The bizarre nature of life in the new media world

confounds what constitutes crime

ii. When does new media based activity qualify as real

world criminality and when is someone a victim of

a crime are unmarked borders that law enforcement

and the courts will have to determine

3. New Media and Performance Crime: Social media provide a new

means to “perform” criminality as a social statement

a. Usually to record, share, and upload them to the Internet

b. Media generated performance crime can be traced to the

early 20th century and the recording of torture and ritual

humiliation of prisoners and hostages by governments and

terrorist groups

i. Example: The photos of the abuse at the Iraq Abu

Ghraib prison

c. The recent explosion of performance crime is linked to the

celebrity culture of the early 20th century which saw the

emergence of:

i. “celebrated criminals”

1. people who because of their criminality

became celebrities

2. Example: the gangster Al Capone

ii. “criminal celebrities”

1. persons who were celebrities first and

subsequently became linked to crime

through either serious crimes, such as

murder, or strings of comparatively minor

offenses

2. Examples:

a. football stars O.J. Simpson and

Aaron Hernandez

b. Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton,

Amanda Brynes

d. Laying the foundation for the development of the celebrity

criminal was the recognition that a famous criminal could

be a valuable commodity

i. However, as victims gained public and media

interest, and predatory criminality became the

primary portrait of criminals, and punitive criminal

justice policies gained public support, celebrated

criminals fell into disfavor and were supplanted by

the more benign celebrity criminal which dominates

the world of crime fame today

e. Mass produced performance crime is possible due to the

shift to the new media dynamic where consumers are also

producers of self-generated media content

i. With this shift the time process of self-promotion

through criminality changed

1. With legacy media the process most often

followed a sequence of first one had a crime

career, second an arrest and punishment, and

third their story was promoted and marketed

2. With new media, especially social media,

the process is often that crime and

promotion are simultaneous

a. New media encourages people to be

seen and socially validated and

YouTube’s call to ‘broadcast

yourself” has resulted in a host of

video postings of offenders

voluntarily posting incriminating

visual records of their crimes

f. Today, attention to celebrated criminals continues to

decline in popularity but following criminal celebrities is

on the rise

i. The confluence of social acceptance of celebrity

criminals, heavily covered media trials, and new

media supported audience participation expectations

have resulted in a significant surge in performance

crime

ii. The contemporary public expectation of

entertaining crime and justice spectacles has

increased the number of:

1. celebrity criminals

2. celebrity victims

3. criminal performances by non-celebrities

seeking attention

a. The capability of new social media

to rapidly elevate the visibility of

previously unknown individuals

means that anyone can become

celebrated at least for a while

b. The distinction between fame and

infamy has blurred

4. New Media and Copycat Crimes

a. Contagion effect related to new media

b. Examples:

i. The spread of the 2010 “Arab Spring” uprisings in

the Middle East

ii. The cluster of internet posted beheadings of

hostages displayed by varied terror groups in the

1990’s

iii. Digital video games, particularly those that portray

crime and violence

1. Generated the greatest debate over the

causal role that video games might play in

the generation of violent behavior in society

2. On one side, the association between game

play and aggression has been repeatedly

reported

a. The view of this set of research is

that that adolescents who play

violent video games show increases

in aggression over time and that the

effect of playing violent games is

substantively different from the more

benign effects from playing

nonviolent video games

3. On the opposing side of the debate, critics

argue that much of the research used to

demonstrate a causal link ignores important

differences in game characteristics such as

level of competitiveness associated with a

game and confounding factors related to

player characteristics

a. These factors are argued to be more

important in the generation of violent

behavior than simple exposure to

violent video games

4. The conclusion is that the research findings

reported thus far are not strong enough to

warrant the marketing restrictions on video

games being called for

a. Collectively, the research from both

sides of the debate suggests that a

significant interactive effect between

game player and video game

characteristics exists

b. Strong evidence of a direct causal

video game role in the generation of

criminality is not found with video

games

c. Gaming appears to interact with

other prior risk factors to heighten

pre-disposed criminogenic impulses

d. Current speculation is that video

games play the role of catalytic

rudders in the formation of crime,

not directly causing it but shaping its

appearance

5. New Media and Criminal Victimization

a. How people sometimes assess social situations and risk has

changed due to

i. The psychological impact of communicating

through new media

ii. The feeling of safety and personal contact that

accompanies live, often visual communication

b. New media have led to faulty and sometimes fatal risk

assessments by some victims while becoming part of the

victimization process for other crimes

i. In the first process, the psychological sense with

new media that you are not alone because you are

able to converse in real time with others and thus

feel “safe,” has led some eventual victims to ignore

risks

ii. In the second process, the social need to share and a

sense that a criminal act has become socially

acceptable because its distribution on social media

has a waiting audience adds an additional public

humiliation layer to being a crime victim

iii. A depressing set of examples currently exist where

someone was victimized, often in a sexual assault,

and their victimization was subsequently publicized

in a secondary follow-on victimization involving

public exposure and ridicule

1. A number of suicides by post crime

victimization victims exposed to additional

social humiliation have occurred

a. In these cases, new media play an

initial role as part of a performance

crime that has been recorded by

offenders

b. It is the distribution via new media

platforms of the visual record of the

initial victimization that adds

additional harm in a perverse

“shaming the victim” social process

2. Recent revelations of the hacking of crime

victim’s mobile phones and social media

accounts by news media in the United

Kingdom further demonstrates the emerging

convoluted relationships that are developing

between victims, offenders, the media, and

the criminal justice systems in the new

media era

ii. New Media and Law Enforcement

1. New media are emerging as a law enforcement resource for both

proactive crime prevention and reactive crime response

a. Currently police agencies employ new media in their:

i. investigations of crimes

ii. identification and pursuit of suspects

iii. apprehension of offenders

iv. crime prevention efforts

b. Proactive applications:

i. Exemplified in digital efforts that are akin to prior

legacy media victimization reduction efforts (such

as the McGruff the Crime Dog public service

advertising campaigns)

ii. Contemporary agencies also post crime prevention

and victimization reduction materials on

departmental web sites and distribute it through

Facebook pages

iii. Employing new communication avenues like

‘twitter–bots” (soft-ware automated Twitter feeds

that automatically send messages to targeted

subscribers such as residents in a particular

neighborhood) highly focused information

distribution of crime alerts has been tested

iv. Information tailored to zip codes or individual

streets have begun to be automated and married to

social media distribution platforms and:

1. Describe police calls for service

2. give crime and fugitive alerts

3. provide crime prevention tips

v. Digital uncover police investigators have been

assuming the online personas of children or

pedophiles to proactively identify sexual offenders

in new media sting operations for a number of years

c. Reactive applications:

i. Law enforcement has embraced the ubiquitous

increased surveillance of digital media for leads and

evidence

1. A recent example: the Boston Police

Department tweeted the general public after

the 2013 Marathon Bombings asking for

leads and received thousands of responses

ii. Offender posted online videos are another

investigatory source that has been tapped by law

enforcement

1. Associated with offender provided

‘performance crime’ material, social media

videos have supplied suspect identifications

as well as incriminating visual evidence for

criminal investigations

iii. New Media and the Courts

1. Judicial applications of new media’s capabilities revolve around

court administration issues

a. Document processing through new media communication

platforms has sped the processing of cases and reduced

delay

i. For example: In Australia the courts have approved

contact through a person’s social media online

profile as sufficient to satisfy legal notice, issuing of

complaints, and delivery of court orders

2. Worries about new media effects on judicial systems are generated

from:

a. High public interest cases that are heavily socially

constructed in social media communications

b. Run-of-the-mill low visibility judicial proceedings where

negative effects on the behaviors of trial participants have

been noted

3. The most important change occurred with the shift from observer

to participant on the part of the public audience

a. The watershed event in this shift was the first cyber-trial,

the O.J. Simpson murder trial (1996)

i. was the first trial to be fully discussed, dissected,

and socially constructed in new media cyberspace

ii. in its rendering as a crime and justice infotainment

production, the trial was transformed

1. from a criminal justice event to be simply

observed by the public

2. into the equivalent of a massive multi-player

game experience