Last Updated on September 26, 2026 by Karl Thompson
Sensationalisation means presenting crime in a way designed to shock, excite or entertain, rather than to inform. The main points are:
- The media sensationalise crime, especially if we include fictional crime programmes, which make up a large share of television output.
- Crime fiction reverses the picture official statistics give. Surette calls this the ‘law of opposites’.
- Some media glamorise crime and deviance, from deviant celebrities to video games.
- Crime dramas normalise police misconduct. A 2020 study of US crime shows found they present police wrongdoing as acceptable and make racism in the criminal justice system invisible.
- Sensationalist news coverage can turn into a moral panic, as with press coverage of knife crime and drill music.
Sensationalisation is part of the media and crime topic within the Crime and Deviance module, examined on Paper 3 of the AQA’s A-level sociology specification (7192/3).
Crime fiction and the law of opposites
If we include fictional crime programmes, the media tend to sensationalise crime. Many programmes almost revel in crime and especially deviance, sometimes even glorifying it.
Surette’s ‘law of opposites’ holds that fictional representations of crime are the opposite of what official statistics show. In real life, most crime is fairly mundane property crime, and most crimes are never solved. In fiction, violent and sexual crime dominates, and the police almost always get their suspect in the end.
British crime drama is a good illustration. The selection of BBC dramas below shows just how much of the BBC’s output crime drama seems to make up, and all of them focus on the most horrific crimes. Kidnapping and murder seem to be the most popular.
Many of these dramas also have multiple victims. Happy Valley had about five, in one quiet region of Northern England, over the few weeks the series was set across. Compare that with the actual homicide rate and the law of opposites is easy to see.
Glamorising crime and deviance
Some media go further than exaggerating crime: they make it look appealing. Consider the way deviant celebrities are treated, or the hyperreal, idealised representations of war in games such as Call of Duty.
This matters because one of the arguments that the media may cause crime is that glamorous portrayals of crime, and of wealthy lifestyles, can encourage people to imitate them. I look at this in two ways the media may contribute to an increase in crime.
How crime dramas normalise police misconduct
In January 2020 the campaign group Color of Change and the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center published Normalizing Injustice, a study of 353 episodes from 26 scripted crime series from the 2017–18 US television season.
The researchers found that the main police and detective characters are depicted as inherently ‘good’, even though they are frequently doing ‘bad things’, like ‘roughing up’ suspected criminals, or much worse. In fact, the vast majority of the central characters do things which breach police conduct standards and are often illegal, yet they are not portrayed as bad for doing so. Police illegality is presented as normal and acceptable, and the need for police accountability is dismissed.
The study also found that crime dramas render racism in the criminal justice system invisible. In reality, race is central to policing (think of the skewed stop and search rates in the UK), and yet this issue is barely mentioned in fictional crime dramas.
Remember that this study is of American television. It fits the wider pattern of the media taking the side of the police, which I cover in my post on how the media represent crime. But British drama doesn’t always follow it: Line of Duty, for example, is built entirely around police corruption.
From sensationalism to moral panic: knife crime and drill
Sensationalist news coverage can tip over into a moral panic. Coverage of rising knife crime in the UK illustrates the point. Some of the right-wing press took a moral panic approach, using the phrase ‘Wild West’ Britain to describe the increase, while some of the left-wing press made more of an effort to understand the causes.
Drill musicians have also received negative press for ‘inciting violence’, another possible example of a moral panic. I look at this case in more depth in jailing drill musicians: justified or a moral panic?, and at moral panic theory itself in moral panics and the media.
Evaluating the sensationalisation argument
The effects are hard to prove. Showing that the media sensationalise crime is not the same as showing that this changes what audiences think or do. Most people who watch violent crime drama do not commit crime, and audiences know that fiction is fiction.
Active audiences. Audiences interpret media content in different ways. Some viewers of police dramas will take the heroic cop at face value; others will read the same programme critically.
Not all crime drama follows the law of opposites. Some more recent drama deliberately shows the police as flawed, corrupt or unsuccessful, so the pattern may be weaker than it was.
Commercial pressures explain a lot. Pluralists would argue that sensationalism is simply what sells. Dramatic crime attracts viewers, so broadcasters make more of it, without any deeper ideological motive.
Exam application
Sensationalisation is useful in media and crime questions on Paper 3 in two ways:
- As part of how the media represent crime. Use the law of opposites alongside the evidence that news over-reports violent and sexual crime; see the exaggeration of violent and sexual crimes in the media.
- As a possible cause of crime. Glamorisation links to imitation and to relative deprivation.
Remember that it is a crime paper, not a media paper, so link the material back to crime and deviance theories.
Crime and deviance revision notes
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my crime and deviance revision notes bundle – which contains the following:
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Signposting and related posts
This post has been written primarily for students studying the crime and deviance topic, as part of the AQA’s A-Level Sociology course.
It is one part of the wider topic of media and crime.
For the evidence on how news coverage distorts crime, see the exaggeration of violent and sexual crimes in the media.
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