Legal and Ethical Aspects of Media Coverage of Deviant Behavior

Abstract

This article deals with media coverage of destructive deviant behavior, particularly, suicides and drug addiction. Presentation of deviant behavior by the media is closely linked to romanticization of crime in the contemporary mass culture, which is a dangerous phenomenon for the society. Mass media products that tell about deviant behavior have a strong psychological impact since criminal romanticism is so widespread in mass culture that criminal and deviant behavior is sometimes presented as a role model. The author studies legal and ethical aspects of media coverage of deviant behavior, gives an analytical review of legal rules and recommendations for journalists on how to cover cases of suicide or drug abuse. The latter have been worked out by either regulatory agencies or authorities interested in this process. Moreover, one cannot find such rules or recommendations either in the Code of Professional Ethics of Russian Journalists or in the draft of the Standard of Media Ethic developed by the Public Panel for Complaints about the Press of Russian Union of Journalists. The article describes compositional, lexical and stylistic means of romanticizing deviant behavior, and analyzes coverage of suicides and drug abuse by the example of media content of Russian popular newspapers Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Komsomolskaya Pravda. The most common means include an eye-catching title, shifting the focus from the case of deviant behavior to the agent’s outstanding personality traits, the author’s affective evaluation of the case, evocative lexicon, and quotes or reminiscences that justify or approve of the deviant behavior. The author infers that the means of romanticising deviance by the mass media correlate with the techniques which regulatory agencies and experts recommend journalists to avoid. Therefore, the usage of these means may be considered a bad violation of journalists’ professional ethic.