What Is The Media's Fear Of Crime

The media plays a very significant role when it comes to the public’s fear of crime due to its large availability to the public , it's ability to “construct” crime, and also the way they prime and frame their stories in order to draw in and influence their viewers. Although overall crime rates in the United States have reached its lowest point in 40 years , the public's fear of crime is still increasing. Over the years, the media has started becoming more and more accessed due to technological advances. With the media being probably one of the only outlets that informs the public about crime, a lot of the public’s opinions and information will be influenced from the media. With that being said, the media doesn’t give all the facts and covers

With mass media being geared more towards entertainment in today's society, their focus is more on interesting, fear evoking stories that will get them a larger audience. The combination of all of these lead to a misinformed public who’s fears of crime has stayed high while crime rates have reached an all-time low.

The media must go through a very long and complex process before they are finally ready to present their story to the public. This process includes prioritization before it is passed through the working conditions and environments of journalists and editors. Since the media is a business, the process must be cost effective. By focusing on certain sources that produce “reportable” crime, they are narrowing insight and information about the actual crime, never giving the “whole” story. After selecting the crime to write the story on, they start to pay attention to smaller details such as the heading of an article or choosing specific words to use over other ones. Every little thing is made to catch the attention of the reader during this process. Words that often evoke different emotions are often used in order to

Framing specifically focuses on how information is selected, organized and presented to the public. It places a heavy importance on exactly how the information flows, visual editing of what goes where in the presentation and also the experience felt by the viewers. The most important part out of all of this is all the information that the media decides to leave out when framing. This type of power makes the media an extremely influential part of society. An example of how the media can influence the public's view is by simply labeling an issue differently. By choosing to label gun laws as a public safety issue rather than a criminal justice issue can have a huge impact on the way the public views gun laws. Using the power of language strategically, mass media is able to sway public opinion on certain topics just by changing a couple of words. In today's society, framing plays a huge role in the media which is focused on entertainment and drawing the public in with stories about crime they