Meda Lind-Chesney: Media Misogyny

We know when women play a role in the media they are newsworthy to the public because it isn't normal to see a women breaking the law or killing someone so it fascinates us. It was interesting to read this article because I had no clue that women gangs are growing and I didn't know women were becoming more violent. I also found it interesting that women's gang stories were popular all over the news and on talk host shows like "Oprah" and "Larry King".  The article mentioned that women's violence raised but not dramatically because what was being accounted for were stuff like assaulting their husbands, school fights, girls hitting their moms and small fights on the streets.  The rise wasn't happening because women are becoming out of control and are committing really violent crimes because they weren't. I believe women are committing more violent crimes because they are becoming more independent and can now commit the same crimes as men. Also, the feminist movement plays a part in this.

Mark Schubb: LA Riots and Outside Source

I loved how he started off his article with a comic.  The comic shows how the media portrayed the riots. I know news media only play certain news stories that will get them better ratings for their show.  Of course it has to be about a underclass culture and how blacks are being portrayed as a violent group and how they create riots. But really 60% arrest for riot related violations were Latinos, not blacks like the media all over the world was claiming. News reporters claimed the people were nothing but "savages" gangbangers and thugs in the street making all these troubles. They never once tried to get the real story out to the public and insisted on showing lies and misleading information on how the African community were the bad guys, which in reality wasn't true. They never mentioned how this was all created because of racism in our society.  Racial inequalities were a big thing back then and still is today and to see how the news reporters deceived the riot stories for their personal gain for ratings and what not is disgusting and shows you, you can't always believe what you see or read from news companies.

Outside Source:


One news media that is getting a lot of attention right now is the killing on the Virginia Teach campus.  Two bodies were found dead, one a police officer and a young male. They have not found the shooter and they have no reliable leads yet. The leads they did receive from the public got them now where and are still gathering their information to find the shooter.  I believe this type of story is newsworthy because a police officer was involved and it was on a school campus and Virginia Tech is known for this type of shooting because something like this happened on campus a couple of years ago and this hits home and is pretty scary the whole public should know.

Carol Stabile: Criminalizing Black Culture

In the article she tells a story about a white couple who was supposedly attacked by a black man who shot a man in the stomach and shot his wife in the head.  The story got a lot of media coverage and never ever looked into the husbands back ground because he was white attacked by a black man in a black community. They sympathized with the white gentleman and never suspected him as the criminal.  Like she mentioned if he was black he would never get this kind of media coverage because this is expected from the black culture. Even though later on the truth came out that he was really the killer after he shot himself. This just shows you how media against the black culture always gets misrepresented and seem to care if they do. They are trying to portray that blacks are only victims in their own culture and could never be a victim in the white culture. I liked how she focused her article on high profiled crime media stories like the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson.  I believe that theses are examples on how news media can enforce certain privileges and powers on certain cultures, like on the blacks and whites.  What we see the most on the news is what we are thinking is mainly going on in our culture and if the news media is blaming the black women to have more force in a relationship and is the cause of a dysfunctional family structure. This is believed to cause their children to end up being violent and causing them to commit crimes and how this could only occur in a black culture/community.

Yvone Jewkes: "Crime and the Surveillance Culture"

In the article it mentions that we have experienced a rapid growth in the use of surveillance and it's like Big Brother watching us all the time and it doesn't even bother us because I think it's because we are so used to it. Some new technologies are created to track criminals or to prevent illegal acts but they should know that the criminals will always be 5 steps ahead of them. New technology also creates new loop holes for them to get around the system. I don't think there will ever be a way or stopping them from watching our every move. We are always being watched from our finger prints being taken, them watching our every move on the internet, they have cameras at every stop light, they can monitor our cell phones and land lines and our gps systems in our car.  Technology is just getting better year after year and won't ever go away. Jewkes makes a good point that surveillance at the end is a good thing. They are just trying to protect us and it reduces fear in our society.

Outside Source

reading about prison films reminded me of the show Prison Break. It was one of my favorite shows for awhile until it ended last year. In this show it showed corruption in this prison by the guards and warden. It also showed corruption with the nurses and doctors in the prisons. It's a show about how 2 brothers, one has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, and the other devises an elaborate plan to help his brother escape prison by putting himself in prison with his brother. Inmates get rapped and inmates build friendship and trust with each other.

The Shawshank Redemption Movie

This movie was a great movie to show corruption in the prison system. It also shows that the justice system can send an innocent man to prison for something he didn't do.  The warden, the security guards, and even the inmates all do illegal acts in Shawshank State Prison. You see inmates getting murder, you see inmates getting rapped, dealing drugs. This is what films portray to us how life is in prison for people. Not all movies have happy ending, but this one does. Andy gets away and he gets revenge on all the people who treated him badly.

Paul Mason "The Screen Machine" and Rafter Ch.6

In the article there has been little work on the effect of media representations of prison on public attitudes. The media coverage on prisons has contributed to the public's misinformation about prisons. This kind of misrepresentation on prisons don't only effect the public's information about them but also the the prisons practitioners.  People who get hired for to work for prisons go in there thinking they know how it will be and find out it is nothing like they were informed through films and news media. Most people get their information about prisons from movies, which most of the time are misrepresented. Also, if you think about it, you never see prison media in newspapers or on news channels. It's really hard to get information from the guards or anyone who works there.  Nelli's mentions in his article that there are no more than 12 different plots in all prison films that have been made, like escape, riots, inmate and officer violence, wrongful convictions, and etc. Since the 1940's prion films have declined and I bet it's because they are all the same and have the same plot line. No one likes watching the same stuff over and over, like they all tell you when you can eat, sleep, play and make phone calls. One thing prion films are good for are to make the audience think twice before committing a crime. I know I wouldn't want to be isolated from the world ever.

Rafter Ch. 6
 We find our self watching prison films because we like seeing justice served and we like to see it work properly, which isn't always the case.  When it comes to news media corrections and incarceration receives very little attention because they think it's not  newsworthy enough, which isn't true. I think the corrections and news media have failed to communicate with each other properly. We believe people who are in prison are being dehumanized but seeing movies that show them making friendships make us look at them more like humans like they are and not like animals locked in cages to be laughed at and watched. We hope that the system is working to rehabilitate them so when they are released in the real world they will  do what is right and set a new paths in their life. But we know most of the time this doesn't work. When locked in prison for so long inmates don't think they can make it in the real world so they commit more crime because that's all they know how to do and believe in. We watch these films because we want to see friendships building, we don't want to see them suffering alone, and to remind us that there are still good people in prisons.