Print Media's Role in Shaping Society's Perception: Media Coverage of Crime to create an atmosphere of fear

So, what do you do and how do you feel, when you see front page headline reports on the daily newspapers such as: “Gang War Erupts in East Port of Spain on New Years Day, Murder # 1” or “Cops kill innocent man, ” or “Boy 8 Gunned Down," or "2010 Murder toll reaches 30," or "Four Men Murdered within 24 hours,” or “Weekend Killing Spree claims the lives of 5 persons.” According to Gerbner and Gross (1976), “The mass media constantly surround us; frequently inform us; just as frequently misinform us; and, possibly, mainstream us into a common reality.” The reality of Crime and its omnipresence.

“Do these headlines and articles on the spiraling rate of crime and criminal activities limit, today, how you do what you do?”  “Do you decide to stay indoors more, go out less?” “Do you limit your activities day or night?"

Mass Media Powerful Socializing Agent

According to Raymond Ramcharitar in his book Breaking the News Media and Culture in Trinidad, he states in their book “Media Society (2003), David Groteau and William Hoynes proposed that “the mass media serve as a powerful socializing agent.” They referred to research, which showed that despite the American FBI’s reports that violent crime had been decreasing for a decade, crime coverage increased dramatically in 1991, resulting in an increase in the fear among the American public for their safety. Michael Moore argued much the same point, of manipulation of the public into paranoia-fuelled consumption by the media, in his film Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11. 

Does media drive discourse and fear?

Okay, so here’s another perspective from  Regents Professor David Altheide of the Arizona State University, Professor Altheide in his article entitled “Altheide says media driving discourse of fear” states, “there is now a discourse of fear that pervades society, this discourse relates to the sense that danger, dread and fear are pervasive and just around the corner.”    The headlines and newspaper reports focus on telling certain stories in a particular manner.  Overtime, the newspaper develops its own language to communicate certain issues to the national community; this new language contributes in influencing the way society thinks, thus shaping their perceptions on certain issues. 

Altheide, an expert in the use of content analysis of the media, says the language of fear has slowly built up in everyday use for more than a decade. If society becomes based on fear, Professor Altheide says, “The biggest consequence is that people will change their lives to deal with it.  Social life starts to change because of it, and we start altering our lives.”  We do not go out as much.  Architecturally, we protect ourselves with gated communities, high walls and no windows.

Anxiety, fear, change in your social life are all areas that we may well have to adjust. How has the media’s reporting of crime affected your life?