Media representation of regulated incivilities: Relevant actors, problems, solutions and the role played by experts in the Flemish press
| Author | Anna Di Ronco |
| Published date | 01 November 2016 |
| Date | 01 November 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1748895816646614 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2016, Vol. 16(5) 585 –601
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895816646614
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Media representation of
regulated incivilities: Relevant
actors, problems, solutions and
the role played by experts in
the Flemish press
Anna Di Ronco
IRCP, Ghent University, Belgium
Abstract
This article analyses the representations of regulated nuisance in a section of Flemish newspapers
over time. It identifies the groups of people who have been successful in conveying messages in
and through Flemish press news, and explores the way they have represented problems of, and
suggested solutions to, regulated incivilities over the years. Furthermore, against the backdrop of
newsmaking criminology, it considers whether and how crime and justice experts have contributed
to shaping the Flemish media discourse on regulated incivilities over time. Overall the analysis of
press news has found that the press, by giving coverage to the voices of local institutional actors,
has promoted the criminalization of nuisance and, especially, of physical incivilities. The views of
criminological experts, by contrast, have remained marginal. The article concludes by suggesting
how such findings present a new set of empirical and conceptual challenges for newsmaking
criminology, and more generally, for public criminology.
Keywords
Flemish Region (Belgium), media analysis, media representations, newsmaking criminology,
regulated incivilities
Introduction
Over the past two decades many European countries have enacted regulations aimed at
sanctioning uncivil, as opposed to criminal, behaviour. This growing interest of national
Corresponding author:
Anna Di Ronco, IRCP (Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy), Department of Criminology,
Criminal Law and Social Law, Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 4, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Email: Anna.DiRonco@UGent.be
646614CRJ0010.1177/1748895816646614Criminology & Criminal JusticeDi Ronco
research-article2016
Article
586 Criminology & Criminal Justice 16(5)
policy-makers in regulating incivilities has been explained in the (especially UK-based)
literature through reference to rising societal concerns over issues of crime and disorder
(Burney, 2005; Squires, 2008). Feelings of insecurity about petty crimes and incivilities
have also led the legislature of Belgium to adopt a system of ‘gemeentelijke administra-
tieve sancties’ (municipal administrative sanctions) or GAS fines in 1999 (Devroe,
2012).1
Research has analysed understandings of incivilities, as well as change in dominant
societal attitudes and trends about incivilities as mirrored in media outlets. A study by
Peršak (2007) has, among others, shown how representations of the ‘anti-social’ in the
British press have changed through time. Societal attitudes towards the Belgian system
of local administrative sanctions as reflected in the Flemish press have also been ana-
lysed in a recent study, which found that the perceived legitimacy of sanctions also
changed over time (Vander Beken and Vandeviver, 2014).
The media play a crucial role in the construction of crime, and through this suggest
solutions to it (Hall, 1982). More recently, the media have facilitated the construction of
anti-social behaviour as a problem. In England and Wales, for example, sensationalistic
media coverage of anti-social behaviour has been a factor in labelling certain marginal-
ized populations as deviant (Burney, 2005; Squires, 2008). As the cases of football hoo-
liganism (Pearson, 1984) and anti-social behaviour connected to social housing (Burney,
2005; Flint and Nixon, 2006) show, societal preoccupations surrounding incivilities have
been amplified by the media and have led to the adoption of punitive legislation.
Media representations of crime and crime control often rely (or rely more substan-
tially) on the words of institutional actors, whose opinions are usually more present in
the news than those of other categories of speakers (Reiner, 2002). The media may pre-
sent, however, distorted and biased versions of these views (Barak, 1988). Furthermore,
Barak (1988, 1994) has argued that the prevalence of biased representations in the medi-
ated discourse on crime and crime control can (at least, partly) be connected to the rela-
tive absence of the voices of criminologists and criminal justice experts, which are
crucial for the critical analysis and de-construction of misinterpreted images of crime,
deviance and their enforcement responses. To encourage criminologists to participate
more actively and, ultimately, to correct distorted mediated images of crime and crime
control, Barak (1988) introduced the ‘practice’ of newsmaking criminology.
Studies in newsmaking criminology have addressed criminologists’ efforts to manip-
ulate the mediated discourse on crime and crime control. However, they have done so
mostly by describing criminologists’ own interventions in the media (Barak, 2007b; Fox
and Levin, 1993; Greek, 1994; Henry, 1994), which tend to relate to specific, time-lim-
ited crime events or issues (Barak, 1988, 1999, 2007a; Mopas and Moore, 2012). In other
words, the newsmaking criminological literature seems to have under-investigated
whether experts in criminology and criminal justice participate in crime-related media
debates over time, in this way potentially contributing to longer term shaping of medi-
ated discourses on crime and responses to crime.
This article draws together interest in the regulation of incivilities, the media role in
defining this as a problem and the importance of particular actors in gaining a voice and
thereby influencing message shaping, and through this aims to take newsmaking crimi-
nology in a new direction. It does so, first, by identifying the groups of people who have
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