Mass Media Fear Of Crime

One of the largest ways the media influences public opinions is through the news. News outlets report on local and world events, often applying their own bias to advance an agenda (Cavender, 2004). In general, entertainment television depicts crime, especially violent crime, far more often than it actually occurs in the real world (O’Keefe, 1987). Crime is more often than not presented to the public in two ways: crime is violent and criminals are nonwhite (Gilliam, et al, 1996). When put together, these two factors have

(Torres, S. 1998) Research indicates that fear of crime, whether self-imposed or realistic, can immobilize individuals, harm the local economy and negatively impact social interactions as well as the quality of life (Albanese, 1990 Skogan (1987) argues that crime victims believe that more crime exists, are worried about victimization and attempt to protect themselves. Parker and Ray (1990) as well as Krannich et al. (1989) revealed victimization to be a predictor related to fear of crime. Additional support for these findings was provided by Smith and Hill (1991), who showed that actual victimization appears to increase fear of crime by increasing the perception of vulnerability. (Torres, S. 1998) Research also shows that fear of crime among minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status is related to their vulnerability in the urban environment (Liska et al., 1982). The elderly who are physically vulnerable and less agile are more fearful of crime even though they are less likely to be victims. (Torres, S. 1998) The proliferation and presence of gangs in the United States is also linked to the concept of social incivilities and increased fear of crime. This problem of fear does not go away. The people not only have a constant fear, it continues to the next generation of people in

Pop culture media, like Law and Order, has a way of showing people how crime is portrayed. Case (2013), mentions that past studies about the representation of crime in the media has increasingly shown fear to the public and portraying unrealistic standards of how crime is in the real world. Media likes to exaggerate how things truly are in the real world, which is why people believe what the media portrays. People will believe that everything they see in a television show can truly happen in the real world, which certain things can happen but not everything. If people end up believing in how the media portrays crime then people will be living in fear of their society being more violent than it actually is (Case, 2013).

We’ve all heard it hundreds of times from people that the news and media is overdramatic. That is one of the biggest complaints about the media, but is it true? Scholarly articles have found that the news is in fact over dramatic about crime which induces public fear and may produce many myths about how much crime is actually happening in our society. As a broadcasting major, it is easy for me to see why the news would cover stories in such a dramatic way. These types of stories capture the users attention which means more people will watch your station resulting in advertising spots being worth more which in the end benefits the stations because they will make more money. Popular examples such as the “knockout game” and the Central Park jogger case both show just how much the media has an effect on society, copycat criminals and other crimes. Is the media overdramatic? Does the media cause higher public fear? What myths does the media create?

Assess sociological explanations of the role of the mass media in creating moral panics about crime and deviance:

The purpose of this paper is to explore the variables associated with the fear of crime and how serious can crime would be estimate. There are three factors that will be examined in this research. The first is that people have fear of crime by age, martial statues and education. This paper will attempt to explain these variances through literature review. The author of this paper will analyze the data from all three factors that explain the fear of crime and the seriousness. This paper will attempt to explain the seriousness of crime and the seriousness across the variables included. The three control variables that will be used are: Age of fear of crime, marital statues, and education dichotomy. The data indicates that the hypothesis is that when these three variables are included difference are among age and education when fear of crime increase.

(Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009, p. 6) The media’s representation of a rapidly increasing violent crime rate is not supported by statistics which reflect that while the crime rate is rising, the rate is steady and it is believed that this number could even be fluctuated by the increase of victims reporting these types of crime to the police. According to the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2007, 74% of the respondents had quite a lot/a great deal of confidence in the police to solve crime. (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2007 p. 16-17) Although the statistics show the general trend of violent criminal offences is static, a significant proportion of our population still has the perception that our crime rates are increasing (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2010) due to media influence. Another way the media misrepresents Australia’s crime rate is by selectively reporting violent crimes whilst under reporting other offences, which are more prevalent in society.

Many times, the media is the main cause in contributing and encouraging the creation of crime myths. The mass media have responsibilities to update the public on the activities occurring domestically and internationally. Stories or reports have to grab the attention of viewers and often times this is accomplished through methods of dramatizing and sensationalizing stories. Instead of stating solely fact, mass media reports have become bias opinions, allowing for it to evolve into more of an entertainment business rather than news.

There is a plethora of crime related movies, TV shows, video games, etc. Violent portrayals of crime are everywhere. As most Americans do not have any personal experience with the criminal justice system, public knowledge of how it operates comes mostly from the media. Dowler (2003) did a study on the relationship between consumption of such media and fear of being victimized by crime. He found that there is, in fact, a relationship and people who consume more of this media are more afraid of crime. “Regular viewers of crime shows are more likely to fear or worry about crime. Similarly, regular crime drama viewers are more likely to hold negative attitudes toward police effectiveness.” (Dowler,

Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group,

The fear of crime of crime a powerful thing that most people feel at some point in their life whether they are watching TV, listening to the radio or possibly reading the newspaper or even speaking to a friend. The fear as an emotional reaction characterized by a sense of danger and anxiety. To create fear of crime, the fear must be elicited by perceived cues in the environment that relate to some aspect of crime for the person. A very common fear related to crime is the fear of gun violence and the gun controls that come along with it. The different gun laws that are provided bring a great fear to people in different ways because of the inconsistency that it comes with. Gun related fear can come in two different forms. One fear

The information that is put out through the mass media is filtered, so it not only has pieces missing, it also has bias reporting’s. Obviously, they want you to believe what they believe, so they are going to brainwash you into thinking that. When it comes to crime, we examine it the exact same way the media does. That’s the goal. The media has shaped our perception on crime and criminals, to the point where we do not bother asking ourselves, why is this wrong? Why are people being sent to prison? Why are there some people who are getting harsher penalties for trivial crimes? It is not completely our fault. We are programmed to not think these thoughts. Society thinks, ‘‘well there are people who

The public depends on the news media for its understanding of crime. Reportedly three quarters (76%) of the public say, they form their opinions about crime from what they see or read in the news (Dorfman & Schiraldi, 2001). After reviewing five hours of reality crime television shows, one is left with a very dismal look on society and a prejudice towards minorities as they are largely depicted as the perpetrators of crime. This new genre commonly referred to as reality television appears to be sweeping the nation by storm. Opinions vary, depending on whom you ask, to what extent reality plays a role versus the selling of a product. Sensationalism, advertising, ratings hype, profiling and fear all comprise the mass

The effects of newspapers and television, in particular have been found to differ. Newspapers tend to affect beliefs about crime, whereas television more affects attitudes such as fear of crime (Surette, 80).

The importance given to certain crimes in the daily newspapers and other media sources shows us proof to the fact that crime is a topic that has the public’s interest and is a focus of their worries (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). It goes on to discuss the fact that crime as reported on by the media increases the public’s levels of fears and that there is little or no correlation to actual levels of violent crime in our society today.