Media, the Police, and the Multicultural Community: Observations on a City in Crisis

• NCJ Number: 153455
• Journal: Journal of Crime and Justice Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Dated: (1994) Pages: 133-165
• Author(s): M H Barlow; D E Barlow; S Stojkovic
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 33 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Earlier version of paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, 1992

Annotation

This paper examines media treatment of events related to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial murder case and its aftermath in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Abstract

Data were obtained from a content analysis of newspaper articles, participant observation in aftermath events, interviews with news workers, discussions with police officers, and an examination of alternative newspapers. Goals were to evaluate media treatment of the case and the media's role in police- community relations. Analysis showed that the news media played an important role in mediating police-community relations during the volatile period surrounding the Dahmer case. From the time the Dahmer story broke, police-community relations in Milwaukee were mediated by news stories, not in the sense that the media acted as a neutral intermediary between parties in conflict but rather in the sense that various factions in the police department and in the community and several public officials acted through the media in relation to each other. The media exacerbated the crisis generated by the Dahmer case by providing public space in which otherwise factional segments of the population were able to join forces and demand that they be heard. 65 references and 14 endnotes