The press coverage of violent crime : evidence from a newspaper content analysis

Abstract

This thesis examines the newsmaking process that affects the integrity of the information presented to the public. Using content analysis and the social constructionist perspective, I analyzed 295 violent crime articles from the Chronicle Herald from January, 1994 to December, 1998 to evaluate how crime, victims and defendants are represented in the news in relation to race, class and gender. The findings indicate that the overemphasis of stranger-related crimes in news reports is disjointed with the reality of crime, driven primarily by organizational and business decisions that exaggerate the frequency of dramatic and infrequently occurring crimes. Racial stereotyping and crime myths are supposedly prevalent in crime news reporting, introduced through media discourses intended to persuade readers to similarly espouse media viewpoints that blame minorities for the crime problem. But I found that this was not the prevailing structure of crime news reports; in fact, discourse structures about racial minorities were primarily episodic, disputing most research studies. The dominant ideology about the deviancy of lower social classes, however, was reinforced by the press reporting. This thesis details how images of crime are controlled and manipulated by the press and news sources and that crime, victims and defendants are typified as a way to sell crime news.