Crime, News and Fear of Crime: Toward an Identification of Audience Effects

Abstract

Communication studies increasingly recognize the audience's critical role in receiving and interpreting media messages. Research into audience attributes that distinguish “media effects,” on the fear of crime (FEAR) has been limited—particularly as it relates to the reception of news. This study is based on a survey of 2,092 adults in Tallahassee, Florida at the height of a media driven “panic” about violent crime. Controlling for age, gender, race, victim experience and other perceptions of crime, the frequency of watching television news and listening to news on the radio is significantly related to FEAR. Reading newspapers and newsmagazines and recall of detail concerning specific highly publicized violent crimes are unrelated to FEAR. When audiences are disaggregated by gender, race, and a series of third attributes, television news consumption is significantly related to FEAR only for white females between the ages of thirty and fifty-four. This finding holds regardless of victim experience, income or perceived safety. Several explanations derived from previous research are applied to this finding. Both “resonance” and “substitution” have possible explanatory relevance, but the “affinity” of audience members with victims most often seen on television news may best account for the concentration of “media effects” among white women.