NCJ Number
197445
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 39 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2002 Pages: 400-420
Date Published
November 2002
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study analyzed the news reporting on three television stations in Orlando, Florida, to determine any patterns in racial and ethnic content in news reporting on crime.
Abstract
This research was occasioned by frequent claims that crime as reported in the media is typified in racial terms and that race is typified in criminal terms. The study videotaped 3 weeks of local news programming by affiliate stations of the three major networks, beginning on May 18, 1998. A total of 115 half-hour newscasts composed the sample. Coders analyzed the videotapes of the newscasts to determine how individual criminal suspects (n=301) were identified in terms of race or ethnicity. Coders were trained to standardize content analysis. In the newscasts analyzed, 5 percent of all whites, 12 percent of all Blacks, and 28 percent of all Hispanics appearing on the news did so as criminal suspects. This means that when Blacks appeared on the television news, they were 2.4 times more likely to appear as criminal suspects than whites who appeared on the news. The relative presence of criminal suspects among Hispanics who appeared on the news was 5.6 times that for whites and more than twice that for Blacks. Whites were more likely to appear on the news as police officers (28 percent) and role models (21 percent) than as either criminal suspects (5 percent) or victims (5 percent). Thus, the "criminal profile" of whites on television was quite low. A comparison of Blacks and whites as suspects and the comparison of Black suspects to Black victims supports the media's criminal typification of Blacks. Still, Blacks were portrayed as positive role models almost as often (11 percent) as they were portrayed as criminal suspects (12 percent); and they appeared as police (20 percent) substantially more often than in any other specific role. What clearly set Hispanics apart from either whites or Blacks were the suspect/police and suspect/role model ratios; Hispanics appeared as suspects on television news 2.8 times as often as they appeared as police or as positive role models. These findings suggest that local TV news may contribute to the social construction of threat in relation to Blacks and Hispanics, a condition that is associated with fear of crime, "modern racism," and the mobilization of various social controls and exclusions. 5 tables, 15 notes, and 52 references