MEDIA'S COVERAGE OF CRIME

Media's Coverage of Crime

Media's Coverage of Crime

Introduction

Influence of media is very significant in influencing the audience perception towards particular concept, group, or entity. Media effect has been a prime concern in different study domains to determine its impact in a broad range of dimensions. The relationship between media and politics has always been crucial and rather undeniable. Media helps in connecting the individuals to the world and represents the identity of society (Naylor 2001, p. 180).

The news media have the power to reinforce a particular ideology about crime and victimisation (Naylor 2001, p. 180). A reader's attitudes and opinions about crime are influenced, in large part, by the selected information and views they are exposed to from news agencies. So the information that is impressed upon them, regardless of the accuracy of the content, frequently shapes that individual's knowledge about crime and violence. The press affords a tremendous amount of attention to violent crime in the news (Chermack 1994, p. 561). Crimes depicted in news reports, particularly striking crimes, are vastly overrepresented by reporters, and they have a residual effect on the public because of the imagery they project. Details in these types of stories beguile readers with lurid facts about the crime, the victim and the defendant, and typically spin a story that is more representative of a fictional novel than reality (Chermack 1994, p. 561).

This essay will establish the concept of Media's coverage of crime in detail. This essay will also discuss various theories regarding Media's impact on society and legal aspects concerning this matter. The conclusion will sum up all the key aspects of this essay.

Discussion

This paper addresses the role of the news media in providing information about violent crime to the public (Bechtel 2007, p. 849). News agencies play a significant part in selecting and monitoring the validity of the content of the information they supply to the public. Readers are presented with crime events that may or may not affect them, but the facts that they receive are believed to be objective. Given that the majority of the population has little direct or even indirect experience with crime, the news media is the vehicle they use to obtain their knowledge on the subject. Clearly, the media play a pivotal role in creating and disseminating beliefs about criminal acts. They have the power to influence perceptions and opinions about crime, victims and defendants by selecting the types of crimes they want emphasized in the news (Bechtel 2007, p. 849).

The power of the media is also evident in its ability to convince readers that society is more violent than it actually is. They can desensitize readers by persuading them that certain crimes or individuals are aberrant, and portraits of fictitious villains and fictitious victims are presented to the public to reinforce this dominant ideology (Dominick 1973, p. 241). To understand how cultural stereotypes are formed about various groups and individuals in society requires examining the relationship between the news media and crime ...