How the Media Has Effect on the Fear of the Public Regarding the Occurrence of Crimes - Literature review Example

Argument essay Name: Institution: Course: Lecturer: Date: Various researchers have revealed that the huge population of the society relies on media for info regarding crimes, thus they eventually end up forming their opinions regarding the crimes depending on whatever they usually grasp or go through from the broadcasting (for instance Tyler and Cook, O’Connell 1999). This essay analyzes how the media has effect on the fear of the public regarding the occurrence of crimes. The society’s opinion usually is that violent crimes are growing more exponentially as compared to the white collar crimes, (but the public fears violence more than any occurring money scam) while in actuality it isn’t the case. (Public Policy Forum, 2001). O’Connell (1999) also claims that the public is conscious of the bias of the media as a result of their experiences in life. But the consciousness of the misrepresentation of the information regarding crimes is determined by the educational levels too. For instance, any editors, journalist and social scientist are more probable to recognize the bias in the media. The philosophy that is usually used while explaining the impacts of exposure to particular media stuffing is referred to as the cultivation theory and was made known to the public about 1970 by Gerbner. George’s study was grounded basically on the likely impacts the TV might pose to those watching it. He made a conclusion that substantial experience with the media content might over a longer duration of time progressively bring about perceptions in those viewing it- who are more constantly with the domain of TV programs, as opposed to the day-to-day domain (Williams and Dickinson, 1993). Though it is only a small fraction of the population that gets itself involved in committing violent crimes, those individuals who are not conversant in regard to fierce crimes usually have a perception that the globe is significantly unsafe and cruel than its realism, and are usually much terrified of getting abused than they require to be (e. g. Williams and Dickinson 1993, Stapel and Velthuijsen, 1996). From the time when the 1970s extra study was carried out, it has been unearthed that the broadcasting is amongst the various factors that affect the perceptions in the public regarding the fear of crimes. Agreeing with Vanderveen, it’s usually amongst the several parameters affecting the social life of the people in every community. Every insignificant role in the media, altogether results to main roles. Broadcasting is among the sources that result to the fear of crimes [it has] an impact, though it is not very significant. The other origins of facts might be the statistical figures similar to the rates of crimes. However, study has shown that facts and figures have no impact on the public’s notion regarding the crime. An individual’s character or socialization (what they have learnt from a parent, friend, household member, etc.) is a parameter which is too put into consideration (Stapel and Velthuijsen, 1996). Vanderveen asserts that the public has often thought from the start of time, crimes are increasing. David Altheide (1991, 1997, and 1999) reports how terror encompasses the widespread beliefs and the news media. A research carried out by Altheide was a demonstration that the term terror is existent in broadcastings in most of the newspaper’s parts of broadcasting and relocates from topic wise. Bestowing to Altheide, terror nowadays seems to be contained and institutes a key civic discourse by which many difficulties and concerns are enclosed (Altheide, 1999). Altheide deliberates the manner in which broadcast, specifically reporting regarding crimes have turned out to be interweaved with the entertaining design that has taken over most of the broadcasting programmes. Alterations within the IT and communication approach and distribution have affected the manner in which societal matters and evils are being viewed. Broadcastings about crimes have been established to be ‘problem frames’. A frame, as per Altheide’s thinking, focuses on what would be discussed, how it would be deliberated and, most essentially, how it would not be deliberated. The media treatment of the complicated events like the violent crimes and their relevant results and impacts as difficulties fit carefully in the entertaining set-up. The driving forces of commercial aspect introduced in the entertainment setup in the coverage of news, and via that the issue frames arose. A substantial discrepancy between the broadcasting and non – broadcasting has been linked using the entertainment criteria (Altheide and Snow, 1991). Broadcasting programmes are turning out to be more of entertainment programmes since they are being molded to outfit a culture steered towards broadcasting reasoning that doubles Television criteria, reports and views into the day-to-day lifestyle. Reality TV, surprisingly, had fun in the stereotype and image of broadcasting regarding crimes and terror (Cavender and Bond – Maupin, 1993). The America’s mostly desired, a common program that features on the theatrical re - enactment of ruthless law-breaking, was believed by a big number of Americans to be considered to be a broadcasting program. Various aspects regulate the connection between broadcasting performances of crimes and terror. Such aspects comprise of the uncertainty crimes, the zone and exaggeration of criminalities and self – applicability and exaggeration of the exhibition of the criminalities (Health and Gilbert, 1996; Tyler and Cook, 1984). Heath (1984) reported that those law-breaking presentations that constitute no info regarding a probable intention provoke additional terror as compared with when an intention is deliberated. Unplanned, native offenses are fear-provoking views for the public. Furthermore, evaluation on bizarre, violent criminalities results into increased terror in case the criminalities happened in the vicinity. An organization of social psychosomatic study recommends that origin reliability results to motive alteration (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993; McGuire, 1985). Whenever the readers consider the message sources to be supplementary reliable, they would exhibit considerable attention in the information and would be significantly tuned to it, bring about in additional concurrence with the place held by the disseminated messages. Thus, law-breaking facts, disseminated by additional reliable sources would be perceived like legal material that can’t be explicated away and has to be taken with seriousness. In case the information from the trustworthy sources entails some terror – arousing aspects, it might subsequently initiate terror. Whenever information regarding the crimes is disseminated by a less reliable source, conversely, it isn’t perceived to be normally effective or worthy of attention. The research carried out by Koomen et al. (2000) hypothesized and established that the readers who were issued with the articles about street robbery, and alerted that it had been printed by trustworthy newspapers, testified additional terror on robberies / crimes generally as compared with those who had a perception that the article was contained in a less trustworthy newsprint or the one in the control group who reads no article of any kind. Furthermore, an individual who reads the more reliable article would be more worried concerning burglary in common as a social discontent as compared with the ones who didn’t go through the articles. As was forecast by Koomen et al. (2000), the effects of the articles regarding panic of robbery, terror of crimes generally and anxiety about burglary as a societal problem entirely was determined by the reliability of the information source. They also established that, females were reporting more anxiety on robbery, fear of crimes and anxiety on criminality as a societal problem than males. The samples engaged by Liska and Baccaglini (1990) comprised of the 26 main U.S. Capitals embraced in the National Crime Survey. There were 10,000 respondents, who were at the age of sixteen and above from all the 26 major towns, constituted the samples. In deliberating how broadcasting coverage could impact the degrees of terror, various points were made. Homicide stories exhibit significantly the strongest connection to anxiety, with a local story accelerating terror of crimes and non – local stories reducing terror of crimes. It looks as if the coverage of crimes in other cities makes the public to be feeling secured by contrast. Liska and Baccaglini (1990) assert that it is vital for researches regarding the fright of crimes to reflect on the detail that there are dissimilarities between rural and non – rural fierce offenses that get stated in the media. Whenever local inhabitants are fed with news regarding any homicide and brutal law-breaking that happen in the town places, they might feel safer in contrast. Therefore, since crimes in local places seem to be lesser than in the towns, local inhabitants subsequently encounter lower intensities of terror on crimes. The town’s societal image or repute like a crime – ridden and dangers affect fright of crimes, but originally the repute held by a city is depends on various local homicide stories that are disseminated in the starting 15 pages of any resident newspaper. Thus, the tally and position of news regarding brutal crimes in any local newspapers has effects on the degree of terror of crimes in rural inhabitants that eventually results to a particular city being labeled as unsafe and offense – ridden (Parker and Ray, 1990). In conclusion, it is not totally clear to what degree the media augments the public’s anxiety of becoming victimized. But the available literature has unearthed that the media exaggerates the crime incidences so that they can increase their sales. This eventually increases the magnitude of fear in the inhabitants in the location regarding the crimes. Therefore, it can be concluded that the media’s representation of crimes increases our terror of crimes in the society. Reference List Altheide, D.L. and Snow, R.P.(1991). Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era. Journal of Postjournalism, 43, 121-272 Altheide, D.L. (1997). The News Media. The Problem Frame and the Production of Fear. Sociological Quarterly, 38, 4 Altheide, D.L. (1999). Fear in the News: A Discourse of Control. Sociological Quarterly, 40, 3 Cavender, G. and Bond-Maupin, L. (1993). Fear and Loathing on Reality Television: An Analysis of America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries. Sociological Inquiry, 63, 305-317 Eagly, A.H. & Chaiken, S. (1993). The Psychology of Attitudes, Journal of Psychology, 27, 223-315 Heath, L. and Gilbert, K. (1996). Mass Media and Fear of Crime. American Behavioral Scientist, 39, 379-386 Koomen, W., Visser, M., and Stapel, D.A. (2000). The Credibility of Newspapers and Fear of Crime. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 3, 921-934 Liska, A.E. & Baccaglini, W. (1990). Feeling Safe by Comparison: Crime in the Newspapers. Social Problems, 37, 3, 361-374. McGuire, W.J (1985). Attitudes and Attitude Change. In: Lindzey, G. and Aronson, E. (eds) Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd Edition, Volume Two. New York, Random House O’Connell, M. (1999). Is Irish Public Opinion towards Crime Distorted by Media Bias? IN: European Journal of Communication, 14(2), p. 191-212. Parker, D. and Ray, C. (1990). Fear of crime: An assessment of related Factors. Sociological spectrum, 10, 29-41. Public Policy Forum.(2001). Crime Perception. Research Brief, Volume 89, Number 2. Retrieved from, Online: http://www.publicpolicyforum.org/josh/preventionadvocated.pdf Stapel, D.A. and Velthuijsen, A.S. (1996). Just as if it happened to me. The Impact of Vivid and Self – Relevant Information on Risk Judgements. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 102-119 Tyler, T.R. and Cook, F.L. (1984). The Mass Media and Judgements of Risk: Distinguishing Impact on Personal and Societal Level Judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 693-708. Williams, P. and Dickinson, J. (1993). Fear of Crime: Read All About It? The Relationship between newspaper crime reporting and fear of crime. British Journal of Criminology, 33, 33-56 Read More