The effects of news stories that put crime and violence into context: Testing the public health model of reporting

Journal of Health Communication

Volumn 7, Issue 5, 2002, Pages 401-425

  Coleman, Renita ^a   Thorson, Esther ^b  

^a LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CRIME; HUMAN; INFORMATION DISSEMINATION; PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION; PUBLIC HEALTH; PUBLICATION; RISK FACTOR; SOCIAL MARKETING; UNITED STATES; VIOLENCE;

CRIME; HUMANS; INFORMATION DISSEMINATION; NEWSPAPERS; PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION; PUBLIC HEALTH; RISK FACTORS; SOCIAL MARKETING; UNITED STATES; VIOLENCE;

EID: 0036778541     PISSN: 10810730     EISSN: 10870415     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10810730290001783     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. Astor, D. (1994). Covering kids: Children’s advocacy group head says many newspapers are devoting too much space to stories about youth violence. Editor & Publisher, 127(50), 9.
2. Azjen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention, and behaviour: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
3. Baran, S. J., & Davis, D. K. (1995). Mass communication theory: Foundations, ferment and future Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
4. Barnhurst, K. G., & Mutz, D. C. (1997). American journalism and the decline in event-centered reporting. Journal of Communication, 47(Autumn), 27-53.
5. Berns, N. (1999). “My problem and how I solved it:” Domestic violence in women’s magazines. The Sociological Quarterly, 49(1), 85-108.
6. Bishop, E. (1993). Reporters ignore context of crime, says criminologist. St- Louis Journalism Review, 25(161), 1-3.
7. Blazier, T. F., & Lemert, J. B. (2000). Public journalism and changes in content of the Seattle Times Newspaper Research Journal, 21(3), 69-80.
8. Brewer, W. F., & Nakamura, G. V. (1984). The nature and functions of schemas. In R. S. Wyer, & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook Of social MgrnHm (p. 119-160). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
9. Brosius, H., & Bathelt, A. (1994). The utility of exemplars in persuasive communications. Communication Research, 21, 48-78.
10. Chiricos, T., Padgett, K., & Gertz, M. (2000). Fear, TV news, and the reality of crime. Criminology, 38(3), 755-786.
11. Cohen, B. C. (1963). The press and foreign policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12. Combs, B., & Slovic, P. (1979). Newspaper coverage of causes of death. Journalism Quarterly, 56, 837-843, 849.
13. Dorfman, L., Woodruff, K., Chavez, V., & Wallack, L. (1997). Youth and violence on local tel-evision news in California. American Journal of Public Health, 87(8), 1311-1316.
14. Einsiedel, E. F., Salomone, K. L., & Schneider, F. P. (1984). Crime: Effects of media exposure and personal experience on issue salience. Journalism Quarterly, 61(1), 131-136.
15. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Com-munication, 43(4), 51-58.
16. Ericson, R. V., Baranek, P. M., & Chan, J. B. L. (1991). Representing order: Crime law andjustice in the news media. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
17. Friedman, S. M., Gomey, C. M., & Egolf, B. P. (1992). Chernobyl coverage: How the US media treated the nuclear industry. Public Understanding of Science, 1, 305-323.
18. Gebotys, R. J., Roberts, J. V., & DasGupta, B. (1988). News media use and public perceptions of crime seriousness. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 30(1), 3-16.
19. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
20. Gibson, R., & Zillmann, D. (1994). Exaggerated versus representative exemplification in news reports: Perception of issues and personal consequences. Communication Research, 21 (5), 603-624.
21. Gibson, R., & Zillmann, D. (1998). Effects of citation in exemplifying testimony on issue per-ception. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 75(1), 167-176.
22. Goodman, T. (1993, December 23). Crime and black images in TV news. New York Times, p. C14.
23. Grabe, M. E. (1996). Tabloid and traditional television news magazine crime stories: Crime lessons and reaffirmation of social class distinctions. Journalism andMass Communication Quarterly, 73(4), 926-946.
24. Graber, D. (1984). Processing the news: How people tame the information tide New York Longman.
25. Griffin, J. L., & Stevenson, R. L. (1992, Spring). Influence of text and graphics in increasing understanding of foreign news content. Newspaper Research Journal, pp. 85-99.
26. Harris, R. J. (1994). A cognitive psychology of mass communication (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
27. Heath, L. (1984). Impact of newspaper crime reports on fear of crime: Multimethodological investigation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(2), 263-276.
28. Heath, L., & Gilbert, K. (1996). Mass media and the fear of crime. American Behavioral Scientist, 39(4), 379-386.
29. Iyengar, S. (1991). Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press.
30. Jacob, H. (1984). The frustration of policy: Responses to crime by American cities. Boston: Little, Brown.
31. Jones, E. E. (1979). The rocky road from acts to dispositions. American Psychologist, 34, 107-117.
32. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review, 50, 237-251.
33. Kirkhorn, M. J. (1996). Violent crime, Nieman Reports, 50(3), 4-9.
34. Lemmens, P. H., Vaeth, P. A. C., & Greenfield, T. K. (1999). Coverage of beverage alcohol issues in the print media in the United States, 1985-1991. American Journal of Public Health, 89(10), 1555-1560.
35. Leps, M. C. (1992). Apprehending the criminal: The production of deviance in 19th century dis-course. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
36. Lerner, M. J. (1970). The desire for justice and reactions to victims. In J. Macaulay & L. Berkowitz (Eds.), Altruism and helpmg behavior. New York: Academic Press.
37. Lerner, M. J., & Matthews, G. (1967). Reactions to suffering of others under conditions of indirect responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(3), 319-325.
38. Lerner, M. J., & Simmons, C. H. (1966). Observer’s reaction to the “innocent victim”: Compassion or rejection? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 203-210.
39. Liska, A. E., & Baccaglini, W. (1990). Feeling safe by comparison: Crime in the newspapers. Social Problems, 37(3), 360-374.
40. Logan, R. A. (1998). Three opportunities to work with the news media. Arthritis Care and Research, 11(1), 53-58.
41. Logan, R. A., Zengjun, P., & Wilson, N. F. (2000). Science and medical coverage in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post: a six-year perspective. Science Communication, 22(1), 5-26.
42. Long, M. (2000, November 18). Crime news important, but in proper context. Atlanta Journal- Constitution, p. A15.
43. Loo, D. D. (1995). Crime scares and mediaframes in the ’90s. Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Washington, DC.
44. McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. (1972). The agenda-setting function of the mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36, 176-187.
45. Mercy, J. A., Rosenberg, M. L., Powell, K. E., Broone, C. V., & Roper, W. L. (1993). Public health policy for preventing violence. Health Affairs, 12, 7-26.
46. Meiritt, D. (1995). Public journalism and public life: Why telling the news is not enough. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
47. Meyers, M. (1997). News coverage of violence against women: Engendering blame Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
48. Milio, N. (1985). Health education = health instruction + health news: Media experiences in the United States, Finland, Australia, and England. In E. A. Rubinstein & J. D. Brown (Eds.), The media, social science, and social policy for children (pp. 118-136). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
49. Nelkin, D. (1995). Selling science: How the press covers science and technology (Rev. ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman.
50. O’Brien, R. (1998, July). Media gloss over news coverage of gun violence, journalists say. The Freedom Forum and Newseum News, pp. 1-2.
51. Osborn, B. B. (1998, January/February). New questions about crime coverage: Reporting violence as a public health issue. Extra! pp. 11-12.
52. Paxton, J. (1998). Context, contacts and accuracy were key in Paducah, Kentucky. Nieman Reports, 52(4), 9-10.
53. Peffley, M., Shields, T., & Williams, B. (1996). The intersection of race and crime in television news stories: An experimental study. Political Communication, 13, 309-327.
54. Petty, R., & Cacioppo, J. (1981). Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches Dubuque, IA: Brown.
55. Plate, T. (1995, October 31). Crime news, without context, equals bias. Los Angeles Times, p. B9.
56. Roller, B. V. (1980). Graph reading abilities of 13-year-olds. In P. A. Kolers, M. E. Wrolstad, & H. Bouma (Eds.), Processing of visible Lunguage 2 (pp. 305-314). New York, London: Plenum Press.
57. Rotter, J. B. (1954). Social learning and clinicalpsychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
58. Rotter, J. B., Chance, J., & Phares, E. J. (Eds.). (1972). Applications of a social learning theory of personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
59. Rubin, A. (1986). Uses, gratifications, and media effects. In J. Bryant & D. Zillmann (Eds.), Perspectives on media effects (pp. 1-16). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
60. Rumelhart, D. E. (1980). Schemata; Building blocks of cognition. In R. J. Spiro, B. C. Bruce & W. F. Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical issues in reading comprehension (pp. 33-58). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
61. Scheingold, S. A. (1991). The politics of crime: Criminal process and cultural obsession. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
62. Schiraldi, V. (1999, November 22). Juvenile crime is decreasing—It’s media coverage that’s soaring. Los Angeles Times, p. 7.
63. Scribner, R., MacKinnon, D., & Dwyer, J. (1995). The risk of assaultive violence and alcohol availability in Los Angeles County. American Journal of Public Health, 85(3), 335-340.
64. Severin, W. J., & Tankard, J. W., Jr. (1992). Communication theories: Origins, methods, and uses in the mass media. New York: Longman.
65. Shapiro, M. A. (1994). Think-aloud and thought-list procedures in investigating mental processes. In A. Lang (Ed.), Measuring psychological responses to media messages (pp. 1-14). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
66. Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1991). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass media content. White Plains, NY: Longman.
67. Silk, M. (1995). Unsecular media. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
68. Smith, S. J. (1984). Crime in the news. Bntish Journal of Criminology, 24(3), 289-295.
69. Stark, P. M., & Hollander, B. A. (1990, August). Information graphics: Do they help readers understand news events? Presented to the Visual Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Minneapolis, MN, (p. 7).
70. Stepp, C. S. (1998). The fallout from too much crime coverage. American Journalism Review, 20(3), 55.
71. Stevens, J. E. (1994). Treating violence as an epidemic. Technology Review, 94(6), 22-28.
72. Stevens, J. E. (1997). Reporting on violence: A handbook for journalists. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Media Studies Group.
73. Stevens, J. E. (1998). Integrating the public health perspective into reporting on violence. Nieman Reports, Winter, 38-40.
74. Stroman, C. A., & Seltzer, R. (1985). Media use and perceptions of crime, Journalism Quarterly, 62(2), 340-345.
75. Thompson, D. (1998, March 29). The science of violence: Guns, politics and the public health. Washington Post Magazine, pp. 12-16, 23-29.
76. Thorndyke, P. W. (1984). Applications of schema theory in cognitive research. In J. R. Anderson & S. M. Kosslyn (Eds.), Tutorials in learning and memory (pp. 167-192). San Francisco: Freeman.
77. van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Elite discourse and racism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
78. Wallack, L. (1990). Mass media and health promotion: Promise, problem and challenge. In C. Atkin & L. Wallack (Eds.), Mass communication and public health: Complexities and conflicts (pp. 41-51). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
79. Wallack, L., Dorfman, L., Jernigan, D., & Themba, M. (1993). Media advocacy andpublic health: Power for prevention. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
80. Wanta, W., & Gao, D. (1994). Young readers and the newspaper: Information recall and perceived enjoyment, readability, and attractiveness. Journalism Quarterly, 71(4), 926-936.
81. Wanta, W., & Remy, J. (1995). Information recall of 4 elements among young newspaper readers. Newspaper Research Journal, 16(2), 112-123.
82. Ward, D. B. (1992). The effectiveness of sidebar graphics. Journalism Quarterly, Summer, 318-326.
83. Weaver, D. H., Hopkins, W. W., Billings, W. H., & Cole, R. R. (1974, Autumn). Quotes vs. paraphrases in writing: Does it make a difference to readers? Journalism Quarterly, pp. 400-404.
84. Williams, P., & Dickinson, J. (1993). Fear of crime: Read all about it? The relationship between newspaper crime reporting and fear of crime. Journal of Criminology, 33(1), 33-56.