1. Introduction

This work represents work in progress for a book on public attitude, populism and penal policy. The work attempts to map the development of populist penal policy practices in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The work also considers the theoretical dimension in attempts to explain the rise of populuisrt crime policy (mandatory sentencing and increasing punishmnet based on perceptions of hardening public opinion). What I will discuss here concerns the role of the media in shaping the direction of political decision making (PDM) in regard to supporting or introducing populist penal policy. The key three themes I will touch on here can be described as convergence, capture and corruption (more precisely attitudinal contagion). Other issues concern the dynamics of rising concentration of media ownership, the introduction of new forms of media and their political implications and finally the threats to democratic principles signalled by populism.

Rather than following trends in the actual crime rate public concerns are much more in line with the amount of crime depicted in the media. As shown regularly - the number of crime stories shown in the media in the US has increased despite declining crime rates through the 1990s. It is the reaction of the middle class to their perception of crime - driven by the amount of crime on the media which promotes the issue of punishment as an area requiring attentionⁱ.

It is important to note that the media is not driving this direction in a conscious or conspiratorial way, rather it is the convergence of populist politics with media domination that creates the evil. Shichor (1997) also talks about the convergences of interests in society. Using the cultural model of  "McDonaldization" Shichor draws the parallels between the principles demonstrated in the fast food industry (efficiency, predictability and control) to those underlying mandatory sentencing. To the principles outlined by Shichor media treatments also engender simplicity (the penal policy should be able to be expressed in a sentence, a phrase or a word and should be dead simple), commodification (the penal policy should be prescriptive and be excited as a package in an automatic and mechanistic way and dramatism (the penal policy should be presented as new, clean, powerful and effective). Consumer expectations, shaped by industrial exigencies are thus also applied to areas of social policy.

2. Media influences on PDM

2.1 The literature on media influences

A great deal of research has explored the way crime news is constructed and there is general agreement that media coverage of crime serves a number of distinct interests. These interests stem from the central purpose of gaining the attention of the viewer/listener/reader. The actual conceptualisation of the interest, the priorities and the effects articulated by different scholars vary, however, it is more accurate to see these studies as complementary rather than competing or mutually exclusive. Although there have been a number of distinct analyses all seem to agree on the important social functions and processes that are involved. Table 1 provides an overview of some of the main contributions. All perspectives would agree that the accurate portrayal of crime is "way down" the list of priorities, if important at all. Whether the primary function is "representing order" (Ericson et al, 1991) or allowing "moral exercise" (Katz, 1987) the focus is on what crime and punishment can do for the viewer/reader/listener not what they can do for crime. Most analyses go beyond the naive assumption that the public is responsible and seeks accurate information. Rather most focus on the functions served by the media, such as is the entertainment of an alienated public with too much information and not enough direction.

Public attitudes are not the result of a cold determination of the facts. This fallacy of a "rational" and "concerned" public lies at the heart of many criminologists' frustration with the media. Instead, public opinion is primarily, and perhaps exclusively, the product of concerns with social power and related symbolism evoked by crime and punishment. In reality, apart from public broadcasters, media organisations are purely commercial enterprises and it is unrealistic to expect that they will not seek to be popular at any cost. Thus media treatments reflect the co-option of crime and punishment to serve various social and cultural expressive functions.

Table 1 Main analyses in the study of media treatments of crime and punishment
 

Perspective	Focus	Examples of proponents
Institutional	order	Ericson et al Orwell, Snow (1994)
Phenomenological	morals/emotions	Katz (1987) Claster (1992)
Social orientation	representation of world	Surette (1992) Best (1990, 1999) Sparks (1992) Cavender (1993)
Newsmaking	demands of media industry	Fishman (1978) Orcutt and Turner (1993) Barak (1994)
Policy effects	media processing and effects	Elias (1993)
Dynamic	agencies, conflict, process	Schlesinger et al (1991)
Economic	commercial interests	Herman and Chomsky (1988)
Critical	class interests	Hall et al (1978)

2.2 The influences of the media on public perceptions

The media influence public perceptions on penal policy through a systematic process of distortion of facts about crimeⁱⁱ. As O'Connell and Whelan (1996) note, reliance on the media tends to facilitate a hardening of views to crime and punishment that may provide the popular support for punitive penal policy. Another effect identified by Baer and Chambliss (1997) is that the media focus on crime (facilitated by government agencies) has the effect of generating fear and in particular a fear of the groups considered "criminogenic" - the poor, Blacks and mentally disturbed. The image of "crime out of control" thus precipitates and justifies a range of actions resulting in social exclusion that would not be possible if they were simply made explicit as part of a conservative agenda.

The goal of popularity is, in itself, not a problem, however the mechanisms that are used in order to achieve that goal do considerable damage as far as public knowledge, understanding and belief of crime and public policy are concerned. These mechanisms can be summarised under four media tactics for gaining popularity and attention as outlined in Table 2.

These focal concerns of the media have certain implications regarding how crime, offenders and punishment can be depicted. In many ways the story becomes bigger than the facts. The facts of crime and justice are, therefore, the base material for the construction of stories according to the focal concerns.

Table 2. Ways of gaining audience attention and their effect on public opinion
 

Mechanism to gain popularity	Effect on knowledge and crime policy
1. Sensationalism	No interest in deeper analysis Most sensational crime selected Most sensational aspects of the crime selected Contextualising information deleted Fear used routinely to attract interest
2. Moral outrage	The most morally "exciting" crimes chosen The most morally "exciting" issues chosen Actions of politicians and judges scrutinised out of context Moral entrepreneurs use crime and punishment details to excite outrage
3. Focus on conflict	Simple depiction of conflict favoured Simple depiction of cases Simplification of social issues Search for social enemies, threats and fears
4. Social power palliative	Reconstruct "just" world Depict reassuring social power arrangements Threats to current social order overcome Reinforce the value of mainstream pursuits

The needs and interests of the media and the public are different from those concerned with the real time problems of crime and punishment. The convenient fictions of crime and punishment would not matter as much if they did not then inform and limit policy makers. It is the difficult task of political leaders to work with the given demands of media regarding crime and punishment to depict a more meaningful appraisal of the problem. However the problem of the gap between media constructed crime and real crime can not be considered uncritically. The division to a certain degree suits politicians, or is at least provides an opportunity for symbolic posturing not provided in less newsworthy areas of government. As Surette (1994, p. 147-148) notes, the effect of these free ranging raids on crime policy by politicians seeking to exploit public misconceptions have far reaching effects on the nature of social policy:

Penal policy is first and foremost used by the media and politicians as an important symbol of power over threats to safety and security. These symbols are important because while ostensibly we are talking about crime, the real underlying anxiety that is being dealt with is the concern for moral cohesion. Strong expressive laws are a palliative to these anxieties.

2.3 Influence of the media on punishment policy

Kennamer (1992) proposed that the media play a central role for the interaction of the three forces involved in the generation of public policy: policymakers, special interest groups and public(s) as shown in Figure 1. For each of these parties their input and their output only becomes real -- in terms of communication with the other parties - through its depiction on the media. The media, then, become a central pivot in this dynamic process of policy formulation, reaction and adjustment. As long as there is a tacit understanding that the media are not pursuing their own policy agenda, the media reaction to policy is often read by all three groups as being akin to, or at least somewhat in sympathy with, public opinion or reactions.

Herbst (1998) argues that policy makers actually use and conceptualize "public opinion" loosely, creatively and especially rhetorically to support policies that serve certain interests. In this context (actual) public opinion is sometimes not of critical importance. An accurate view of public opinion does not seem to matter as much as the perception that the promoted policy has wide public support. As Kennamer (1992) notes: "We define effective public opinion as opinion that reaches decision-makers as they try both to discern public opinion and decide how to react to it. Another way of putting the idea of effective public opinion is that it is those expressions of opposition or support that reach and influence policymakers' ideas about what "public opinion" is (Lemert, 1981). Given this basic definition, we need to differentiate between effective opinion and (1) mass opinion and (2) majority opinion." There now seems to be a consensus of view that government policy is not the direct result of public opinion. Rather it reflects the actions and views of policy makers, who may use what they perceive to be public opinion in formulating policy. However in selling the policy they will often refer to public opinion to legitimate and support the policyⁱⁱⁱ.

For much of the population and also for politicians the media is important as a source of information about what others are thinking. There is a large power in media representations and a particular source of this power lies in the media's capacity to portray what public opinion indeed is. As Chomsky and others argue, the media have the power, (used wittingly or unwittingly) to shape public opinion simply by describing or suggesting what it is that the majority of well regarded citizens believe or would support. The media can therefore "amplify" certain positions associated with pro-punishment groups, in particular victims' advocates. There has now been a considerable literature looking at how victim advocates groups have both used, and been used by, the media to further certain political objectives^iv.

Herbst (1998) from her study of US policy makers argues that many policy makers gain their views of what public opinion is from the media. Doppelt (1992) conducted a survey in Cook county which revealed that 30% of the 152 government officials surveyed said that news coverage had led to recent changes in their agencies operations (p. 125). Dopplet found that about a third of judges, court administrators, corrections officials and others in law enforcement said that news coverage led to substantive changes.

Chan (1995) reports perhaps the most dramatic example of this effect. A Minister in the government of New South Wales participated in a radio talk show to defend and promote the government's policy of cautioning juvenile car thieves. However, adverse reaction from callers led to the cancellation of the policy later the same morning! Notwithstanding the speed of the compliance to judged public/media reaction the reversal of policy or the endorsement of policy based on what is popular is not unusual but indeed the norm.

Cobb and Elder (1981) point to the role of the media in providing a filtering and focusing of policy from one department or area to another. Decision makers themselves are media consumers and to find out what is happening or at least the important things that are happening they rely on the media. This may be partly that they believe that the media are reliable or alternatively it simply represents a way of coping with the overwhelming amount of information that must be processed. Whatever the reason it further supports the likelihood that public policy has been captured by the media hyper-reality. What appears in the media becomes the primary or "effective" reality - to be both responded to and sought as an outcome.

2.4 Media influences on the process of government and policy formulation

What is missing here is any concern about how well informed the public is or even whether the particular policy is effective or in the public's "best" interests. Populism thus fundamentally works on an emotional rather than rational basis. Ideas, their information base and their logic matter less than feelings, value judgements and opinions. Not everyone can have enough information to develop a crime policy designed to reduce crime but everyone can have an opinion about what feels right to them. In this "game show" the media is the host which provides the window to government and we are invited to give our views in the kind of way that the public opinion "worm" is used during televised presidential debates. This passive and emotional "democracy" can be contrasted with a true "participatory democracy" that involves active and responsible citizen involvement. This kind of participation would demand more information and the adoption of a "decision making role" --  two key features of responsible involvement. The participation expected by modern media is much more passive -- basically watch what is depicted and give the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". Obviously this kind of participation puts much of the power directly into the hands of the media who are able to decide how to depict certain policies and other government actions.

It is partly because of its central role as "morality monitor" that the media will continue to be a focus in the evolution of crime policy. Media current affairs journalists are able to operate in this environment as public moral entrepreneurs, projecting what they think will resonate with the public. Populist politicians adopt a similar position to the current affairs journalist in anticipating what will be strike a chord with the imagined audience. Public relations consultants are being seen as increasingly more relevant and influential to Government ministers than their policy directorates. Crime policy then is largely a product of political considerations which in turn are influenced (and often designed for) the media which provide the conduit to "public opinion" and thus a potential political effect. By providing a broad window of what can be taken to be public opinion or rather public interest and sentiment the media is assured a high degree of importance. In the increasingly pluralistic, highly mobile, global, fast moving and information rich future the media will gain even more power in being able to depict "how it is".

The degree to which the media have been increasingly used by commercial and political interests has been the source of much comment^vi. The intertwining of political and commercial interest and the influence over the media has led to the co-option of media into the "public relations" for these interests. The amount of money and the degree of sophistication of these public relations endeavours is now becoming clearer. Attitudes on social issues are thus being shaped as a by-product of some greater commercial agenda. Attitudinal contagion may be the best way to understand the symbolic support rendered to populist authoritarianism. Whilst the punishment of offenders may be of little direct interest to commercial/political interests, the symbolism of protecting the rich and well established supports beliefs regarding the acceptability of concentrations of wealth and erodes beliefs in the needs of the poor and the acceptability of welfarism^vii. It is the symbolic messages that are important and the media serving large corporate interests have an investment in seeing crime as a function of bad people. Bad people may also be poor, because poverty is associated with moral bankruptcy. This suggests by contrast that wealthy people are successful and moral. These two concepts - material success linked with moral ascendancy serve to legitimise commercial and conservative interests.

The slide of democracy into populism has been largely facilitated by the growing reliance on the media. The central role of the media for comment, news and entertainment and in particular investigative reporting has established it as the central morality "broker". There appear to be a limited number of set scripts with predictable cast of characters and plot. The details vary, as do the degree and form and speed of the compliance of public officials to their allotted role. Outlined here are some of the main scripts. The main dimensions are established by the growing culture of fear and fragmentation. Surette notes this environment is illustrated by the myth of the predator icon. Similarly Vaughan (2000) notes that Elias had linked greater violence (punitiveness) when circles of trust contract. Essentially what is lost is the belief in the power of society to reform. Instead punishments are based on anxiety and fear, a belief in the inevitability of evil and that the only way to control the dangerous ones is by external and explicit controls^viii.

van Swaaningen (1997) notes that these characteristics signal a return to an earlier point in the Eliasian civilisation process. The principal dimensions then of the new punitiveness oscillate between two contemporary fears in the new world order^ix. First there is the fear of the underclass, dangerous offenders and opportunists of all sorts especially the "new" crimes and "new" types of offenders. This fear evokes calls for protection and provides the emotional basis for the fascination with harm minimization and the "risk society". The second fear is a fundamental mistrust of government and especially elites. This fear evokes calls for demonstrably harsh and arbitrary punishment.

2.5 Effects on Penal Policy

Savelsberg (1999, 1994) in seeking to understand the wide divergence between imprisonment rates in the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR) and the US developed a theory based on the different ways that knowledge (broadly conceived as information, perceptions, attitudes and beliefs) are institutionalised in the US compared to the FDR. Savelsberg sees such knowledge as the product of social institutions such as interest organisations, news media, public opinion polls and political offices. Such knowledge is therefore a function of a nation and a particular historical period. Savelsberg argues that in the US, unlike the FDR lobby groups are often single issue, the media is driven by market forces and public opinion polls are seen as important and a constant focus of both politicians and the media. Finally the politics in the US is highly personalised and individual rather than party based. The situation in the FDR is just the opposite leading to a more solid and "bureaucratized" processing of information and policy, less influenced by polls and sensationalist reporting and single issue lobby groups. Savelsberg argues that the nature of the institutions of "knowledge" production and dissemination in the US leads to "knowledge" being more dynamic and polarized. The difference regarding information and politics can perhaps be thought of in terms of weight. The German manner of considering information input is considered, delayed, mediated and bureaucratized and considered withing the framework of a range of social issues. Against this is the much lighter political process of sudden and emotional law making by populist politicians in the English speaking world. Penal policy tends to be promoted quickly, on the basis of flimsy information for sudden effects and unintegrated into other social policies.

Savelsberg (1999) has noted "knowledge" in countries such as the US characterized by market driven media, frequent opinion polling, and weak political parties tends to be "polarized and dynamic". Public opinion polling itself plays a role as it captures reproduces and intensifies public sentiments. One of the reasons for this is that the questions used in the polls reduce and simplify complex issues to a one line proposition and demand a yes or no reply. Public opinion polls can therefore shape the way we think about issues of crime and punishment and the range of possible responses. Thus politics is often navigated through the equivalent of the Saragosso Sea of social issues with only the crudest of sextants as a guide.

However populist penal policy then feeds into an ever shallowing pool of information. Based on the fear engendered by promoting "crime is bad and getting worse" messages many in the public truly believe that things have never been this bad and are getting worse. It is this belief that provides the ground for punitive crime policies. The facts of increased health, longevity and increased safety paint a different picture. People have never lived longer or in better health and arguably in more real safety than they did in the 1990s^x. There was likely a much greater chance of being assaulted in previous generations than there is today, as domestic violence and the corporal punishment of children were much more common and physical assaults between adults would be much less likely to be considered a crime or reported to the police. There emerges then a real question of the direction of government in a time where overall affluence is growing but social divisions deepening and where health education and technology are expanding to ever new heights but social problems such as suicide, crime and drug use are at best being held steady. Is it simply a case of misinformation and miscommunication or are punitive penal policies a strategy of distraction from the failure of social policies? Punitive penal policies imply not only individual responsibility rather than social policy as the cause of crime they express a confidence of will - getting tough is doing something - it is responding and suggests a certain confidence - a confidence mainly for the benefit of the affluent or at least the majority of the population that is now fully engaged in mainstream and thus are committed to current social arrangements (van Swaaningnen, 1997).

The ineffectiveness of punitive penal policy may eventually be viewed as an expensive and ineffective response to crime and those who promote such policies within government will be subject to deserved criticism. In this regard it should be noted that those with responsibility for enacting policy, like a judge in a courtroom are in a different position from "the man on the street" asked for his opinion. First there is the notion of responsibility - a decision is different from an opinion. Second the choice made by the government will actually result in changes to peoples lives - the loosely held and easily expressed opinion is not of the same order. Which ever way it is viewed the problem of populist penal policy presents a particular challenge to the integrity of democratic political systems in the English speaking world. In the face of strong individualistic, commercial and media forces if government is to become more than a sort of subsidiary game show then more weight - more information and direction will be needed to balance what passes as "knowledge" in the general public.

Implications for criminologists centre on focusing on accountability of government policies, disseminating information and developing useful accounting mechanisms such as the "community safety" budget. The politics of penal policy formulation are thus highly relevant to any understanding of the growth of populist penal policies. For one thing it points to the political perspective that calculates few costs and many gains associated with ineffective but popular ideas like mandatory sentencing. But it also points to the weak points in the populist strategy. Ultimately politicians will need to be more than simply "game show" hosts. They are, and will be held, responsible for the consequences of the policies in a way that the public will not. They are vulnerable also in so far as they are responsible for the expenditure of public funds. If it can be shown that those funds could be expended in another way which much greater returns in terms of community safety politicians will (and should) be judged to have failed. The difference between being a talk back radio commentator and a government Minister may appear increasingly hazy to many but the difference should be increasingly clarified with meaningful and comprehensive audits of the effectiveness of penal policy. Such audits thus may achieve what was earlier achieved in Rome: the cutting off the irresponsible exploitation of public funds.

3. Conclusion

It is arguable that the news media, broadly conceived, have always had a central role in public affairs. The construction of the vox populi and the way in which government intentions have been communicated has always depended on the means of communication between the public and their government. Changes in the late twentieth century such as social fragmentation, increased mobility and globalization have worked to further establish the media as a critical, and now transnational, influence on crime policy. The rapid growth of media sophistication - media forms, technologies and market research have also accelerated the position of the media to the centre of public life.

Populism is particularly well suited to the modern domination of the media and vice versa. The subtext of news media reporting, particularly on television, is that the salient aspects of public policy are being dutifully reported for the viewers. In line with the commercial nature of the media, governed by the imperative to sell, the viewer is "always right". Thus the ultimate, and largely the only, test of success is popularity. The media, like the populist politician are supplicants at "the court of public opinion". However, both are also more than supplicants and regularly invoke the name of the king for their own ends. The media have become a sacred institution in the populist world.

The amorphous construct "public opinion" is divined for the masses by politicians and media speculators. It seems more accurate to conceptualise it as it is practically used: not as a solid and scientifically measured reality but a set of sensibilities, beliefs and predictable reactions that are mutually drawn and invoked by politicians and the media. This "virtual" reality - a set of responses and inputs is dynamic and primarily defined as a result of political and media initiatives. Because of this the lead still lies largely with politicians and the media. In this environment entertainment, information and commercial interests converge and draw public policy in. Thus unless governments can directly control the media (becoming almost impossible with globalization) they will feel the centrepital force of media-based popularity.

There are many parallels between politics and the media and it is very easy for politicians to be seduced by media attentions and vice versa. Television ratings and election polls serve as key performance indicators used to gauge success of the two institutions courting public opinion. The speed with which these are now measured and disseminated quickens the pace in the race for "glamour". The fast pace and the continuous fascination with popularity leaves any attempt to engage rational, complex or difficult discourse floundering in the dust. Media contingencies determine what is depicted, how it will be depicted and importantly what the attitude of the "public" is towards it. In an era where "public opinion" is seen as the ultimate judge it is the understanding of how majority opinion falls that is the key piece of information -- more than rational argument and often more than humanity or efficacy.

The key issue with regard to media influence on the current politics of penal policy is firstly understanding the "quicksand" effect of media/political arrangements for responsible penal policy. It matters less how effective a penal policy is than how popular it will be. This is a consequence of the slide of democracy into populism. Politicians thus abdicate responsibility for penal policy development and allow it to be used more and more as a sop to public sentiments about crime and punishment. For example. it becomes harder to wrest crime policy away from its status as a new form of TV game show. As each political party accepts the inevitable -- that punishment makes "good" television it becomes harder to suggest anything other than simply more punishment. In an era when other institutions have lost their influence or power, politics and entertainment become one major institution and the "Roman Games" return as a major characteristic of government. This scenario was also foreshadowed by Orwell in "1984" with visions of a populace sedated, controlled and made complacent by an ever-present media conveying images of struggle and power over various enemies of the state. Van Swaaningen (1997, p. 189) notes that class controol is now largely achieved not by the exercise of authoritarian state apparatuses but by the all pervading mechanisms of the consumer society and commercial media working in tandem to create docile middle classes numbed with "entertainment, game shows soft porn and fashionable cloths and gadgets" what Shearing and Stenning (1987) call the kind of social control through infantilisation.

In the same way that Roman Emperors sought favor with the masses at the Coliseum we now observe a similar kind of "Voodoo" politics in an era best represented by the TV game show (The TV game show succinctly incorporates superficial glamour, interactive undemanding entertainment and mild suspense together with a reinforcement of consumer values). In this environment penal policy is not pursued with the aim of making society fairer or safer but primarily for the cheers of the in-house audience. Popular social enemies (the poor, Blacks, the young and drug addicts) serve as effigies into which populist politicians stick the pins of punishment under the magical spells such as mandatory sentencing and boot camps.

The media, in their depiction of crime news, encourage simplistic analyses and the endorsement of harsh punishments. The media can be seen to have two distinct influences on PDM . First, the media reduces socio-political issues quickly to popularity contests. Second, the media exploits social issues for entertainment/social needs.

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