978-1285459059 Chapter 4 Part 2

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the media as a source of entertainment or as a source of

instruction.

b. The first path is related to thoughtful planned

3. In the third path, narrative persuasion operates, and deep

psychological involvement with media content and storyline

develops

a. In this path no real-world decision is pending, and

instruction is not a goal

b. This path describes how most people use and interact with

most media, seeking entertainment, not explicit instructions

c. When engagement with criminogenic content is high,

transformation or absorption results, and the consumer is

transported to a world where criminal behavior is:

i. Justified

ii. Rewarded

iii. Unlikely to be punished

d. Due to the large quantity of crime-related narratives in the

media, media content in general can be thought of as a

haphazard entertainment-education effort

e. The higher the level of engagement with the narrative, the

less counter-arguing with the content’s informational

messages will occur

f. Provides a mechanism to influence individuals who would

be resistant to following the cognitive persuasion paths

i. Rather, in the narrative persuasion path, media

consumers are “side–participants” in the story line—

prepared to play an active role when given the

opportunity

g. However, it is expected that few transverse the middle

block and follow one of the three copycat paths down to the

third “appraisal and adoption” block in which committing a

copycat crime is seriously considered

i. Given the comparative low visibility of copycat

crimes, it is speculated that most individuals who

have passed through block 2 in the model will

decide not to attempt a copycat crime and will exit

ii. The third block is thus the least traveled road even

for at-risk copycat offenders

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ix. Actual copycat crime attempts are hypothesized to be rare as a proportion

of all crime, but not rare in terms of criminal life histories

1. Most of the crimes committed by offenders will not be copycat

crimes, but many offenders (about one in four if prior surveys are

accurate) will have attempted a copycat crime in their lifetimes

2. Two factors are forwarded as playing central roles in the decision

to attempt or not attempt a copycat crime:

a. An individual’s criminal history

1. While there is a long standing belief that the depiction of

punishment at the end of a media portrayal of crime will mitigate

any pro-crime messages, media portrayed punishment will not

necessarily dissuade copying as affixing a punishment to the end of

a succession of successful crimes or to near-successful ones should

not be expected to remove criminogenic learning effects

a. Media depicted punishments can be seen as instructive

lessons on ways to avoiding similar mistakes, and potential

copycats may copy a crime on the belief that with slight

modification of tactics, they can gain the benefits of crime

without suffering the costs

b. Habitual offenders often overestimate their odds of success

and will alter their crime techniques, confident that they

have significantly reduced their risk of failure

xi. Although the copycat crime paths are felt to operate universally, it is

expected that societies will differ between themselves and over time in

their copycat crime rates

1. Some societies are expected to generate more:

a. criminogenic content

b. at-risk copycat offenders

c. opportunities and cultural support for applying copycat

crime models

xii. Concerning the question of who follows the pathways, commits the

copycat crime, and generates the copycat crime rates, a set of five

umbrella concepts have emerged as hypothesized flags for at-risk copycat

individuals:

1. Immersion in crime-related content

a. At greater risk offenders who:

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i. Immerse themselves in a criminogenic niche media

(for example, watching criminogenic excerpts from

a single video repeatedly)

ii. Are weakly networked into law-abiding groups

iii. Are strongly networked into deviant groups

b. Type of copycat crime that generates the most concern:

i. Unpredicted bizarre violence

ii. Violence by individuals without unknown violent

histories (such as found with the Columbine,

Aurora, and Newtown shooters)

iii. Repetitive viewing, in which the copier watches

media content multiple times prior to offending and

displays self-editing of content by repetitively

watching only the copied sequences (sometimes

using freeze-framing to slow down the violent

content)

2. A set of psychological traits

a. Predictors of a propensity to copy violent models include:

i. characteristics such as delusion

ii. a history of high interest in guns and law

enforcement encounters

iii. traits of idleness, isolation, and deterioration in

socioeconomic functions

iv. perceptions of persecution and resentment

3. A personal belief in criminal efficacy

4. An individual’s personal history of inconsistent punishment for

crime

5. A number of family, community, and cultural environment factors

a. The likelihood of media immersion increases as peers and

family decrease in importance

i. Individuals who are deeply immersed in popular

culture and media dependent should also show an

increased copycat propensity

b. Weak social bonding also plays a role

i. Individuals with less to lose from failed criminality

are speculated to more often choose copycat crime

as these individuals will rely more on media for

positive social reinforcement

c. Immersion is also associated with identification with media

offenders

i. Because media-immersed consumers are not

necessarily heavy consumers in terms of total hours

but appear to form para-social relationships with

media personalities, media-immersed individuals

who imagine themselves as the media criminals

should be more likely to copy their offenses

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d. Social isolation

i. Increases copycat crime risk due to the media

increasing in importance as information sources

e. The decision to copy a crime is weighed not only against

the expected reward versus punishment from the crime, but

also against expected outcomes of alternate law-abiding

behaviors. So copycat crime would be more attractive to

those who do not see law-abiding behavior as likely to be

rewarded

f. Persons who see media personalities as opinion leaders and

as friends are postulated as more likely copycat crime

candidates

g. Other copycat flags are found in individual media

preferences and usage motives

i. Individuals who prefer crime content and who

consume high amounts of media content combined

with viewing motives of information seeking or

learning are hypothesized as more at risk to be

copycats

h. Additional personality traits that have been flagged include:

i. low self-control

ii. high criminal innovativeness

iii. behavior disinhibition tendencies

i. The role of intelligence levels in copycat crime is likely

interactive with other factors

j. It is at the family and neighborhood environment levels that

the final determinants of copycat crime operate

i. Potential copycat offenders estimate the likelihood

of reward versus punishment and the expected

social reaction to a copycat offense

k. The presence of criminogenic parents should produce more

copycat offspring

i. Criminogenic parents can either be offenders

themselves or verbally support criminogenic values

l. The media’s criminogenic effects will be further enhanced

by:

i. racial strife

ii. income disparities

iii. detrimental social conditions and contribute to an

increased number of people at risk for criminogenic

media influences

xiii. Research suggests that:

1. a media criminogenic influence will concentrate in preexisting

criminal populations

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2. the effect of the media is more likely qualitative (affecting criminal

behavior) rather than quantitative (affecting the number of

criminals)

3. a pragmatic use of the media by offenders, with borrowing media

crime techniques as the most common practice

4. copycat offenders usually have the criminal intent to commit a

particular crime before they copy a media-based technique

5. copycat criminals are more likely to be career criminals involved

in property offenses rather than first or violent offenders

6. there is no evidence of a strong media criminalizing effect on

previously law-abiding individuals

a. the media are most often a crime rudder, molding crime’s

form rather than being its engine

7. unknown are what factors launch the short term busts of high

profile criminogenic copying the periodically occur

a. Examples of copycat crime waves:

i. product tampering

ii. airline hijacking

iii. suicide bombings awaits further research

i. Media-Oriented Terrorism

i. Even before the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center and Pentagon

attacks, the copycat crimes that generated the most concern were those

related to terrorism

ii. The Media-Terrorism Relationship: A Symbiotic Relationship

1. Media-oriented terrorism: violence is scripted to earn publicity

a. Has significantly increased due to the mutual goal of

terrorists and the media to maximize audience size

b. Today a steady stream of terrorist acts can be identified as

media-oriented terrorist events characterized by:

i. the selection of high-visibility targets

ii. graphic terrorist acts

iii. pre-event contact with media outlets

iv. post-event videos, interviews, postings, and other

media accommodations

c. In the research literature on terrorism, no doubts are

expressed that the media motivate copycat terrorist acts or

that a substantial number of terrorist events are aimed

primarily at garnering publicity

d. Like politicians, terrorists have learned to manipulate

media coverage to bypass editorial gatekeeping and

contextual formatting by journalists and go directly to the

public with their message

i. This process has been made easier by social media

2. Media-oriented terrorism is highly valuable to media organizations

a. Acts of terrorist violence benefit media because they

normally:

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i. have a beginning and an end

ii. can be encompassed in a few minutes of air time

iii. possess a large degree of drama

iv. involve participants who are perceived by the

viewing public as unambiguous

v. are not so complex as to be unintelligible to those

who tune in only briefly

3. Terrorists now understand the dynamics of newsworthiness and the

benefits of news coverage, which include:

a. increased legitimacy and political status

b. heightened perception of their strength and threat

c. an increased ability to attract:

i. resources

ii. support

iii. recruits

4. Contemporary media-oriented terrorists are guided by five

principles

a. Their acts are not tactical in nature but are aimed at distant

external audiences

b. Victims are chosen for symbolic meaning to maximize fear

and public impact

c. The media are eager to cover terrorist violence and will

devote significant resources to reporting terrorist events

d. The media can be activated, directed, and manipulated for

propaganda effects

e. Target governments are at a disadvantage because their

choice is usually between censorship and allowing

terrorists to use the media

5. Gaining media attention is not guaranteed

a. Many more acts of terrorism are committed than are

reported in the media

i. U.S. media give more coverage to terrorism aimed

at U.S. citizens or property

ii. Coverage is focused on events with casualties

b. The resulting competition for media attention causes

terrorists to escalate their violence because more violent

and more dramatic acts are necessary to gain news

coverage as the shock value of ordinary terrorism

diminishes

iii. The impact of media coverage on terrorism is twofold

1. Coverage of a terrorist act encourages copycats

a. There is much anecdotal evidence that terrorist events

occur in clusters, such as with:

i. kidnappings

ii. bank robberies in which hostages are taken

iii. plane hijackings

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iv. parachute hijackings

v. planting altitude bombs on airplanes

vi. suicide bombings

vii. on-line beheadings of hostages

b. These copycat effects are especially strong following a

well-publicized successful terrorist act using a novel

approach

2. Although their numbers wax and wane, the pattern of these violent

performances suggests that media-oriented terrorism has become a

persistent element of the total terrorism picture

a. Started when the Palestine Liberation Organization

terrorists killed members of the Israeli Olympic team in the

1972 Olympics

b. The World Wide Web has also provided a new avenue for

terrorists to disseminate their messages and has partly

supplanted their need to attract news media attention in

order to reach their target audiences

c. Today terrorism is often a twisted public relations

“infotainment” effort

II. Criminogenic Infotainment

a. Where does the research about violent, criminogenic, and terrorism related media

lead?

i. Most people exposed to pernicious media will show no negative effects

ii. Some small proportion of people will show slight effects, concentrated

more in attitudes than in behaviors

iii. Strong behavioral effects are relatively rare and are most likely to appear

in at-risk individuals

iv. The media’s ability to generate greater numbers of predisposed at-risk

individuals also appears to be real

1. In the future, the media’s criminogenic effects will be enhanced as

their current crime-and-violence content contribute to an increased

number of people at risk for negative media influences due to:

a. racial strife

b. income disparities

c. poor social conditions

2. Especially at risk are:

a. violence-prone children

b. violence-prone adults

c. hypermasculine males

v. When the news media sensationalize crime and make celebrities of

criminals, the danger of imitation for notoriety increases

1. When successful crime is detailed, criminals will emulate it

2. When a successful terrorist event is shown or a terrorist group is

able to gain the attention of the media, media-oriented terrorism

will increase

vi. New media have hypothesized criminogenic effects when:

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1. they provide avatar-like criminal models to copy

2. they stimulate interpersonal communications about crime

a. Example: new media communications such as blogs,

Twitter, and e-mails can encourage imitation among

geographically separated terrorist groups

vii. The Internet is seen as a particularly powerful criminogenic influence due

to it having both mass and interpersonal elements

1. As part way between mass media and interpersonal

communication, the Internet provides word-of-mouth

communication with global reach

a. Where real world criminogenic instructors are not

available, the Internet can substitute with interpersonal

communications and deliver detailed how-to crime

information

b. For crime and justice, this means that

i. Media consumers can:

1. experience committing a murder rather than

just observing one

2. help to catch an offender rather than just

watch over the shoulder of a crime fighter

3. determine guilt or innocence of the

defendant rather than just follow a trial

ii. A candidate copycat offender can:

1. search out like-minded role models

2. interact with like-minded role models on a

personal level

3. anonymously learn crime techniques

b. Whether criminogenic effects, such as copycat crime, emerge in any particular

individual depends on:

i. the highly idiosyncratic interactions of the content of a particular media

product

1. its characterizations of crimes and criminals

ii. the individual’s predispositions

1. personal criminal history

2. family

3. environmental factors

iii. the media’s social context

1. preexisting cultural norms

2. crime opportunities

3. pervasiveness of the mass media

a. The more heavily the consumer relies on the media for

information about the world and the greater his or her

predisposition to criminal behavior, the greater the

likelihood of an effect

c. Media effects are real, but it is also apparent that the media alone cannot make

someone a criminal

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i. The media play their role after the biological, economic, and social factors

1. Violent media alone does not make a violent person, but violent

media can make a violent person more often violent

2. Criminogenic media won’t make a law-abiding person a criminal,

but a preexisting criminal may become a greater threat

ii. However, media do facilitate the packaging and delivery of a criminogenic

rate boost

d. The media’s influence on the behavior of most of us is to cause us not to do

certain things

i. By painting crime in a particular hue, the media color the actual world as

violent, predatory, and dangerous

1. Media keeps us from:

a. flying

b. taking a foreign vacation

c. going downtown

d. opening our door

ii. The media makes us:

1. wary of each other

2. more isolated

3. more dependent on the media for our knowledge about crime and

other social conditions

iii. Media does the following:

1. supplies criminal role models and techniques

2. creates a conducive social atmosphere for the predisposed few to

emulate the crimes they see, hear, and read about

3. provides the theoretical ideas that explain it all to the public while

largely absolving that public of any social responsibility

Chapter Key Terms

copycat crime [83] scripts [85]

generator crime [83] narrative persuasion [86]

priming [85] media-oriented terrorism [94]

Helpful and Interesting Internet Sites

The following sites are interesting sources for this chapter. Please review them before

recommending them to your students.

Media and Terrorism:

http://www.trackingterrorism.org/article/new-terrorism-and-new-media-mass-mediated-terrorism

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http://psychologyofterrorism.com/subpage6.html

Media and Copycat Crime:

http://people.howstuffworks.com/5-copycat-killers.htm

http://www2.cohpa.ucf.edu/crim.jus/documents/Surettecauseorcatalyst_001.pdf

http://brainz.org/15-films-inspired-real-life-crimes/