However, this is not a uniform finding across investigations. Research provides some evidence that racial minorities (especially, African Americans) are overrepresented in news stories focused on perpetrators of violent crime (e.g., Dixon and Linz 2000a). 1996 Lundman 2003, 2004) and (3) the impact of race and ethnic portrayals on audiences' concerns about crime and views of who, or what, is responsible for the crime problem (e.g., Altheide 1997 Dixon and Linz 2000b Entman 1992 Entman and Rojecki 2000).ĭespite the proliferation of studies, findings about the nature of media representations of crime vis-á-vis race-ethnic groups are not straightforward. 1996 Lundman 2003, 2004) (2) the manifest content of racial portrayals and/or the extent to which these involve racial typifications (e.g., Chiricos and Eschholz 2002 Gilliam et al. Several research issues have been explored: (1) the extent to which news coverage represents actual patterns of participation in crime by different ethnic and racial groups (e.g., Gilliam et al. Further, because of the assumed differential group impact of such representations, a number of scholars have directed their attention to how racial and ethnic groups are portrayed in crime news stories. In light of their potential influence, researchers have sought to assess empirically the nature and outcomes of media representations of crime. If media sources shape public opinion in these ways and such opinion has its counterpart in the development of criminal justice policies, differential treatment may be the result (e.g., harsher penalties for crimes that are more typically committed by certain perpetrators greater attention to reducing the victimization of members of certain groups who may be erroneously perceived as being at greater risk for victimization) ( Bobo and Johnson 2004 Russell 1998). ![]() On the other hand, overrepresentation of the victimization of certain groups (e.g., females, Whites, etc.) may promote misleading views of what populations are the most vulnerable to crime, or who should fear crime. On the one hand, if media sources overrepresent certain groups (e.g., males, people of color, etc.) as perpetrators, this may promote racial or gender stereotypes or reinforce public hostility toward such groups (e.g., Barlow, Barlow, and Chiricos 1990 Dixon, Azocar and Casas 2003 Dixon and Linz 2000a, 2000b Russell 1998). For example, views of the nature of the crime problem and who, or what, is responsible for said problem in a locale may be shaped by the extent to which specific groups are over- or under-represented as perpetrators or victims in crime news relative to other groups or their share of criminal involvement or victimization. Media representations of crime shape public opinion in important ways, including through the frequency with which, and how they present criminal participants and victims. Racial privileging arguments receive more extensive support. We find limited support for power structure, market share, normal crimes and racial threat explanations of patterns of reporting. ![]() Results indicate that both the context of the story itself and the social structural context within which news stories are reported are relevant to ethnic and racial portrayals in crime news. An important innovation of our work is the use of a national, more generalizeable, sample of local news stories than prior researchers who tended to focus on single market areas. The primary data are from a stratified random sample of television newscasts in 2002–2003 ( Long et al. The reported race or ethnicity of violent crime perpetrators and victims are modeled as functions of: (1) situational characteristics of crime stories and (2) contextual characteristics of television market areas. We draw from power structure, market share, normal crimes, racial threat, and racial privileging perspectives to further this research. Research on racial-ethnic portrayals in television crime news is limited and questions remain about the sources of representations and how these vary for perpetrators versus victims.
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