Fear, News, and Crime Fear, TV News,

Fear, News, And Crime

Fear, TV News, and the Reality of Crime

In 1998, the New York Times magazine ran a cover story entitled "Does Local TV Have To Be So Bad?," and asked the rhetorical question of whether local television coverage of crime influences the attitudes and beliefs of viewers. Ted Chiricos, and his research associates, undertook a scientific research project to investigate whether or not the coverage of crime broadcast by local news channels really influences people's attitudes and beliefs toward crime. Their data suggests that there are a number of influences involved in people's fear of crime, and that a variety social factors are directly involved.

Ted Chiricos, and his associates, investigated the affect of watching news coverage, both local and national, as well as the personal experiences of hundreds of viewers in order to determine if there was a relationship between peoples' fear of crime, the crime rate in their community, and the type and amount of TV news coverage they watch. Although the authors fully admit that there is only a limited amount of research in this area, their research has determined that there is indeed a complex relationship between these factors. The first determination made was that there is a significant relationship to the fear of crime experienced by individuals and the amount of news coverage, both local and national, they watch. (Chiricos, 1999, p.777) This relationship appears to be independent of other factors such as local crime rates and personal experience.

Secondly, the effect of local news coverage is much more influential in a person's perceived fear of crime than the national news. Thirdly, the individuals' personal experiences are also a major factor in their perceived fear of crime. For example, those living in high crime areas and who have had personal experience of criminal activities are affected twice as much by the local news coverage than those who have not, and this is more likely to affect their fear of crime. (Chiricos, 1999, p. 778) An interesting finding made by the researchers was that both race and sex played a role in effect of news coverage on the perceived fear of crime, and that "…the magnitude of these effects is, to some extent, dependent on the sex or race/ethnicity of the consumer." (Chiricos 1999, p. 778) The study determined that, in general, both African-Americans and women were more effected by the frequency of watching local news than Whites and males. When it came to African-American women, they were more likely to be affected than anyone else.