Daily crime reporting legitimizes police surveillance of society

Evidence

To this was added a patient attempt to impose a highly specific grid on the common perception of delinquents: to present them as close by, everywhere present and everywhere to be feared. This was the function of the fait divers, which invaded a part of the press and which began to have its own newspapers. The criminal fait divers, by its everyday redundancy, makes acceptable the system of judicial and police supervisions that partition society; it recounts from day to day a sort of internal battle against the faceless enemy; in this war, it constitutes the daily bulletin of alarm or victory. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 437

Categorization

• XREF: Core thesis match: media’s daily alarm functions like panoptic normalization, making surveillance acceptable. — connects to: Mass media act as primary definers shaping public crime attitudes; Public perception of deviance is driven by media narratives. — Cohen, Stanley, Folk devils and moral panics: the…, 219; A citizen can trigger state surveillance of a Muslim simply by reporting them — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 341

Broader Connections

• Public perception of deviance is driven by media narratives. #expands (0.80) — Cohen, Stanley, Folk devils and moral panics, 219
• Mass media act as primary definers shaping public crime attitudes #responds-to (0.75)
• A citizen can trigger state surveillance of a Muslim simply by reporting them #exemplifies (0.72) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 341