Relationship Between Media And Crime

Violent crimes have become a constant part of today’s media. As the interest of crimes continues to grow, the question of how crime is portrayed within the media influences on the public begins to rise. Others have pondered this question and searched for answers. Through research and several studies the authors of “Constructing Crime: Media, Crime and Popular Culture”, the authors of “Setting the Public Fear Agenda: A longitudinal Analysis of Network TV Crime reporting, Public Perceptions of Crime, and the FBI Crime Statistics”, as well as the author of “Adolescents, Crime and the Media” have developed their own theories over the relationship between the public and the media and crime. Each discuss how the media impacts the public’s view on crime and criminality. In all three articles similarities can be found, but only one purposes a different factor: the public’s interest in violent or out-of-the-norm crimes influences what the media decides to broadcast. One can better understand the relationship between the three components: media, crime, and the public by analyzing these studies, and determining if the media contributes to the public 's perception on crime or if the public’s fascination with crime influences the media. Starting with Ken Dowler, Thomas Fleming, and …show more content…
Lowry, Tarn Ching Josephine Nio, and Dennis W. Leitner. They establish their findings on the portrayal of crimes in the media and the public through the article, “Setting the Public Fear Agenda: A longitudinal Analysis of Network TV Crime Reporting, Public Perceptions of Crime, and FBI Crime Statistics”. These authors question, “does the real world events matter anymore or has the network TV crime news becoming the Americans public’s virtual crime reality”(61). To answer this question Lowry looks into what is known as the “Big Scare” of 1994. Data collected and presented in the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1997 (U.S.)