(The following is my core area proposal for my doctoral program in criminal justice at Rutgers University-Newark.It's posted because, shockingly enough, a few people want to see what it is I've been tearing my hair out over. It seems innocuous enough, doesn't it?)

Media and the social construction of crime and policing:
Process and Effect

A Core Area Proposal

By Susanna L. Cornett
School of Criminal Justice
Rutgers University - Newark
April 2003

In a society as complex as the United States, determining whether you have a clear image of any aspect of the society is a difficult task. Even those segments of society to which you belong – parent, physician, teacher, police officer, Indian, African-American, Jew, Muslim, Southerner, Californian – will have areas you don’t understand, or even necessarily know about. Against this backdrop of complexities, the modern media performs the task of bringing us the news – in essence, telling us what is happening in many parts of society, at best forming a mirror that records and reflects back to us what things are interesting, important, curious, compelling or urgently wrong with our society.

But given that each individual does not necessarily have a complete picture of even his own context, how does the media give context to our society in an objective, consistent, accurate and fair way? The media itself is formed of individuals, each with his or her own context, interjecting themselves into events and situations to observe, record and often examine analytically what is happening. What impact does that have on the eventual production of news? And specifically, in this overview, how does this entity called “the media” present police work and police officers, what influence does the police itself have on that presentation of reality, and does the public actually respond to external input from both sources or do they form opinions based on personal experience and associations with others with personal experience?

The discussion must begin with a look at whether in fact the media constructs news, as opposed to presenting it non-selectively and neutrally. A number of studies have found that in fact journalists do select among possible options, and tend to favor crime stories. Graber (1979) found that the level of crime reporting in the Chicago Tribune and major TV news networks was much greater than its sociological importance; Ericson, Baranek and Chan (1991) discovered that just under 50 percent of news items in both “quality” and “popular” news media in Toronto were on crime, law and justice topics. Several researchers (Ericson, Baranek and Chan, 1987; Barak, 1994; Chermak, 1994; Cavendar and Mulcahy, 1998) suggest that journalists bring a frame to both their selection of topics and their coverage – that is, they already have a conception of what the story is about before they begin covering it, and thus may miss some aspects of a situation which would give their readers a more accurate understanding.

Certainly given the vast range of available information, it’s not surprising that journalists narrow the options by exercising judgment on what is news. But is there evidence of bias in topic selection or coverage frame – that journalists are responding to internal biases or external pressures in shaping their eventual news product? One of the strongest indications of this in the literature has to do with journalists using the frames as mentioned above – essentially shaping the news to fit a preconceived notion or need. Sometimes this fits a need of the organization - in his seminal work, Crime Waves As Ideology, Mark Fishman (1978) tracked how a “crime wave” of attacks against the elderly was constructed by news media in a slow news cycle, when in fact actual crimes against the elderly did not change significantly from levels prior to and following the reported “crime wave”. More recently, this entertainment imperative of the media – the need to increase audience and thus increase revenues – has been observed by Graber (1980); Surette (1998) and Lipschultz and Hilt (2002). However, a number of other frames – which some term “biases” – have been identified by researchers in criminal justice. Tunnel (1995) sees silencing of the left by “the dominant culture of corporate media”; Perrone and Chesney-Lind found a tendency to refer to Hawaiian juvenile delinquents as “gangs” disproportionate to the gang problem; Baer and Chambliss (1997) identified what they saw as a “systematic” effort by media, government agencies and social scientists to perpetuate a myth of “crime out of control”. And there are others in academia, politics and media itself who have identified systematic selection bias as a problem.

The media process does not begin with the media – it begins with events and situations that have the potential to be news. That again can trigger a complex interaction between subject, stakeholders and journalists, determining how (or whether) those events or situations come to the attention of the media, and how they are presented either initially or in subsequent contacts with journalists (Sherizen, 1978). In fact, the interaction has been called a symbiosis (Crandon and Dunne, 1997; Osborne, 1995). The media depend heavily on police sources for their information (Chermak, 1998; Fishman, 1981; Schlesinger and Tumber, 1994), but the police also depend on the media for both image construction and crime solving (Schlesinger and Tumber, 1993; Feist, 1999; Innes, 1999). In recent years, the interaction between police and media has been formalized – especially in larger departments – by the addition of a Public Information Officer (PIO) who handles media requests and interviews (Simmons, 1999; Schlacter and Stewart, 1980; Lovell, 2001).

Given that the media is a foundational means of connecting with the populace – most importantly, the voting public – as a whole, the next important question to ask is this: Does what the media covers and how it is presented have a direct or even indirect influence on shaping public opinion and public policy debate? The findings are mixed – Moy, et al., (1999) didn’t find that the media had a strong effect on public opinion of government institutions, while Surette (1998) suggested that intense media coverage of a notorious crime may make a prosecutor more reluctant to plea bargain in the case – but the consensus seems to be that at the least, the media have an agenda-setting role in the public policy debate and possibly more direct effects (Pritchard, 1986; Etten, 1994; Chermak, 1997).

So to what extent are public views of police affected by the image of police portrayed by the media? Surette (1998: 1) set as the foundational premise of his book, Media, crime and criminal justice: Images and realities, that “people use knowledge they obtain from the media to construct a picture of the world, an image of reality on which they base their actions.” Osborne (1995: 35) put it even more strongly: “It is not too much to suggest that the burgeoning symbiosis between crime and the media redefines the social-psychological understanding of ‘law and order’ and more importantly of its function of social control.” Other researchers had similar findings (Fishman, 1980; Perlmutter, 2000; Lofquist 1997), noting that media coverage of police is increasingly “managed” by police organizations (Ziembo-Vogl, 1998; Lawrence, R. 2002), with some going so far as to institute a marketing model (Schlacter and Stewart, 1980).

The coverage of police and race, with an emphasis on the Cincinnati riots in April 2001 following the shooting death of a black juvenile offender by police, is an example of how the interplay between media and police can work. Various researchers have found that mainstream media were less likely to cover homicides involving blacks (Weiss and Chermak, 1998); media tend to bring a stereotypical frame to coverage of murder when minorities were involved (Conaway, 1999) and reactions of the public to media coverage can vary by race (Wortley, et al, 1997). The coverage of the Cincinnati riots brought out media critics who identified frames and biases from within the profession itself (Ripley, 2001; Leo, 2001; MacDonald, 2001).

A deeper understanding of how the media perform their job, the interplay between internal and external influences, and the impact of media in turn on police and society as a whole, can help media consumers make educated judgments about information in the media. The goal of this core area proposal is to bring together the foundational literature that will foster such an understanding.

1) The media process of social construction

The concept of constructing news assumes that news is not reported as an undifferentiated, observed array of information, but rather proceeds through various filters that shape the final product, including one piece of information while excluding another. This section deals with how it happens and what it means.

Barak, G. (1994) Media, Society, and Criminology. In G. Barak (ed.). Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime. New York, NY: Garland Publishing Inc.
Cavender, G. and Mulcahy, A. (1998) Trial by fire: Media constructions of corporate deviance. Justice Quarterly, 15:4, 697-717.
Chermak, S. (1994) Crime in the News Media: A refined understanding of how crimes become news. In G. Barak (ed.), Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime. New York, NY: Garland Publishing Inc.
Ericson, R., Baranek, P. and Chan, J. (1987) Visualizing deviance: a study of news organization. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 390 p.
Fishman, M. (1978). Crime waves as ideology. Social Problems, 25 (5):531- 543.
Fishman, M. (1980). Manufacturing the News. Austin: University of Texas.
Gans, H. J. (1979) Deciding what’s news : A study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time. New York: Vintage Books.
Graber, D. (1979). Is Crime News Coverage Excessive? Journal of Communication, 29:3, Summer: 81-92.
Kiernan, M. (1997) News reporting and the ideological presumption. Journal of Communication, April.
Molotch, H. and Lester, M. (1974) News as purposive behavior: On the strategic use of routine events, accidents and scandals. American Sociological Review, 39:101-12.
Nelson, T., Clawson, R. and Oxley, Z. (1997) Media framing of a civil liberties conflict and its effect on tolerance. American Political Science Review, September.
Tuchman, G. (1978). Making News: A study in the construction of reality. New York: Free Press.


2) Forces operating on the media: Organizational needs, bias and the entertainment imperative

It’s clear that some constructing of news occurs, but are the filters used to shape the news systematic and biased? And if so, in what direction? Given the complexity of our society and the range of media available, it would likely prove difficult to show an industry-wide ideological bias – a conclusion supported by the readings . However, the majority of media outlets are ultimately businesses, so the need to gain audience and thus market share appears to have led to the broadest systemic influence: the entertainment imperative.

Baer, J. and Chambliss, W. (1997). Generating fear: the politics of crime reporting. Crime Law and Social Change, 27(2): pp. 87-107.
Baylor, T. (1996) Media framing of movement protest: the case of American Indian protest. The Social Science Journal, July.
Benford, R., and Snow, D. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology.
Chermak, S. Body count news: how crime is presented in the news media. Justice Quarterly 11(4) pp 561-582.
Chermak, S. (1993) Interested bystanders: An examination of the presentation of crime victims in the news media and how their involvement in the news production process affects the final news product. Dissertation. SUNY-Albany,
Chermak, S. Predicting crime story salience: the effects of crime, victim and defendant characteristics. Journal of Criminal Justice, 26 (1), pp. 61-70
Chermak, S. (1997) The Presentation of Drugs in the News Media: the news sources involved in the construction of social problems. Justice Quarterly, 14(4): 687-718.
Chermak, S. (1994). Victims in the News: Crime and the American News Media. Boulder: Westview.
Consalvo, M. (1998) ‘3 shot dead in courthouse’ : Examining news coverage of domestic violence and mail-order brides. Women’s Studies in Communication, Fall.
Dunsky, M. (2001) Missing: The bias implicit in the absent. Arab Studies Quarterly, July.
Ericson, R. (ed.). 1995. Crime and the media. Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth 429p.
Ericson, R., Baranek, P. and Chan, J. (1991) Representing order: Crime, law and justice in the news media. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1991.
Etten, T. (1994) Gun Control and the Press: A content analysis of newspaper bias. Unpublished master’s thesis.
Etten, T. and Myers, L. (1991) The Subjectivity of Objectivity: A Critical Review of Research on Biased Newspaper Crime Coverage. Unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, CA, November 20-23.
Fishman, M. and Cavender, G. (eds.) (1998). Entertaining crime: television reality programs. New York, NY: Aldine DeGruyter.
Goldberg, B. (2002). Bias: A CBS insider exposes how the media distort the news. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.
Graber, D.A. (1980). Crime News and the Public. New York: Praeger.
Kidd-Hewitt, D. Crime and the Media: A Criminological Perspective. In D. Kidd-Hewitt and R. Osborne, (eds.) Crime and the media: the post-modern spectacle. London, UK: Pluto Press.
Levite, A. (1996) Bias basics: the data clearly demonstrate that liberal journalists report the news liberally. National Review. September 28.
Lipschultz, J. and Hilt, M. (2002). Crime and Local Television News. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
McCormick, C. (ed.) (1995). Constructing danger: The mis/representation of crime in the news. Halifax, CAN: Fernwood Publishing.
McGowan, W. (2001) Coloring the news. San Francisco: Encounter Books.
Perrone, P. and Chesney-Lind, M. (1998). “Media presentations of juvenile crime in Hawaii: wild in the streets?” Crime Trend Series, 6(1): 1-11.
Pritchard, D. and Hughes, K. “Patterns of deviance in crime news.” Journal of Communication, 47(3): 49-67.
Schlesinger, P. Tumber, H., and Murdock, G. (1991) The media politics of crime and criminal justice. British Journal of Sociology, 42, (3), pp. 397-420.
Schlesinger, P. and Tumber, H. (1993) Fighting the war against crime: television, police, and audience. British Journal of Criminology, 33, (1), pp. 19-32.
Sullivan, M.L. and Miller, B. (1999) Adolescent violence, state processes and the local context of moral panic. States And Illegal Practices. Oxford: Berg.
Surette, R. (1998) Media, crime and criminal justice: Images and realities. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Sutter, D. (2001) “Can the media be so liberal? The economics of media bias.” Cato Journal, January 1.
Tapscott, M. (2001) “First Person: Journalists must remember that politically incorrect views are entitled to an airing.” American Journalism Review. May 1.
Tunnel, K. (1995). “Silence of the Left: Reflections on critical criminology and criminologists”. Social Justice, Spring 1995.
Welch, M.; Fenwick, M.; and Roberts, M. (1998) “State managers, intellectuals, and the media: A content analysis of ideology in experts’ quotes in feature newspaper articles on crime.” Justice Quarterly, 15(2): 219-241.


3) Police/media interaction: Meeting reciprocal needs

The media has a need to provide news their audience wants to read (or see), and crime has long been a sure draw – creating a corollary need to cultivate police contacts to obtain information about crimes. However, one of media’s roles in society is to serve as a check for government institutions, which on occasion results in an adversarial relationship with police. For their part, police have a legal obligation in the US to reveal crime information that qualifies as public record, a need at times to get information on crimes or enforcement initiatives out to the public, and a desire to manage to the extent possible the message about the police that is getting out to the public. This section is about how the intersection of these needs inform the police-media relationship and, in turn, the information about police and policing that eventually makes it to the public.

Chermak, S.M. (1998) “Police, Courts, and Corrections in the media”. In Bailey and Hale (eds). Popular Culture, Crime & Justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Chermak, S.M. and Weiss, A. (1999) Identifying Strategies to Market the Police in the News. Final report submitted to United States Department of Justice. National Institute of Justice. Grant #96 – IJ-CX00078.
Crandon, G.L. (1993). “Crime News: Police Press Office – Police Press Perceptions.” The Police Journal, 66:242-255.
Crandon, G. L. and Dunne, S. (1997). Symbiosis or vassalage? The media and the law enforcers – the case of Avon and Somerset police. Policing and Society, 8(1): 77-91.
Ericson, R.V., Baranek, P.M., and Chan, J.B.L. (1989). Negotiating Control: A Study of News Sources. Toronto: University of Toronto.
Feist, Andy. (1999). The effective use of the media in serious crime investigations. London, UK: Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, UK Home Office.
Innes, M. (1999). “The media as an investigative resource in murder inquiries.” British Journal of Criminology, 39(2): 269-286.
Lovell, J. (2001) Police performances: media power and impression management in contemporary policing. Dissertation. Rutgers University – Newark, May 2001.
Mawbry, R. (1997). Survey of Police Media and Public Relations Offices. Stafford, UK: Centre for Public Services Management and Research.
Mawbry, R., et. al. (2002) Policing images: Policing, communication and legitimacy. 214pp., Appendix.
Mozee, D.M. (1987). “Police/Media Conflict”. In Patricia A. Kelly (ed). Police and the Media: Bridging Troubled Waters. Pp 141-145. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas.
Oliver, P.E. and Maney, G.M. (2000) “Political processes and local newspaper coverage of protest events: from selection bias to triadic interactions.” American Journal of Sociology, 106(2): 463-505.
Osborne, R. (1995) Crime and the Media: From Media Studies to Post-modernism. In Kidd-Hewitt, D. and Osborne, R. (eds.) Crime and the media: the post-modern spectacle. London, UK: Pluto Press.
Rose, E. (2001) Penetrating the Media’s Psyche. Communication World, Apr/May 2001, Vol. 18, Issue 3, p. 10-12.
Schlacter, J. and Stewart, T. (1980). “The marketing concept in law enforcement agencies.” Journal of Police Science and Administration, 8(3): 341-352.
Schlesinger, P. and Tumber, H. (1994). Reporting Crime: The Media Politics of Criminal Justice. Oxford: Clarendon.
Shaw, D. (1987). “Both Blamed: Police-Media Relations – A new low” In Patricia A. Kelly (ed). Police and the Media: Bridging Troubled Waters. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas.
Sherizen, S. (1978). “Social Creation of Crime News: All the News Fitted to Print”. In Charles Winick (ed). Deviance and Mass Media. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Simmons, H. (1999). “Media, police, and public information: from confrontation to conciliation.” Communications and the Law, 21(2): 69-93.
Surette, Ray (ed.) (1990) The media and criminal justice policy: Recent research and social effects. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher.
Ziembo-Vogl, J. (1998). “Exploring the Functions of the Media in Community Policing”. Police Forum, V. 8:1:1-12.



4) Media impact on public opinion and policy

The amount of information about police that makes it to the public via media, and the shape it takes, would be of mostly academic interest if the media had no impact on public opinion or policy. This section explores both the extent of the influence, and the forms it takes.

Callaghan, K. and Schnell, F. (2001) “Assessing the Democratic Debate: How the News Media Frame Elite Policy Discourse”. Political Communications, 18:183-212.
Chermak, S. and Weiss, A. (1997) The effects of the media on federal criminal justice policy. CJPR, 8:4/97, pp 323-342.
Moy, P.; Pfau, M., and Kahlor, L. (1999). “Media use and public confidence in democratic institutions.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 43(2): 137-158.
Munro, V. (1999). Images of crime and criminals: How media creations drive public opinion and policy. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI.
Pritchard, D. (1986) Homicide and bargained justice: the agenda-setting effect of crime news on prosecutors. Public Opinion Quarterly, 50, pp. 143-159. New York, NY.
Ross, R. and Graham L. S. (1972). “The politics of analyzing social problems.” Social Problems, 18, 18-40.
Sheley, J. and Hanlon, J. (1978) Unintended effects of police decisions to actively enforce laws: Implications for analysis of crime trends. Contemporary Crises Amsterdam, 2 3, pp. 265-275.
Skidmore, P. Telling Tales: Media power, ideology and the reporting of child sexual abuse in Britain. In Kidd-Hewitt, David and Osborne, Richard (eds.) (1995). Crime and the media: the post-modern spectacle. London, UK: Pluto Press.
Stone, D. (1989). “Causal stories and the formation of policy agendas.” Political Science Quarterly, 104, 281-300.



5) Media construction of policing

The articles in this section go past the issue of what forces shape the relationship between media and police to address what image of police is being created and how it is done. They look at both media processes and frames to understand if there are biases involved and if so, what they could be. They also look at the reciprocal influences of the police, and how they try to influence the evolving portrayals.

Fishman, M. (1981). “Police News: Constructing an Image of Crime.” Urban Life, 9(4): 371-394.
Gerbner G., et. al . (1980) Trends in network television drama and viewer conceptions of social reality. The Annenberg School of Communications University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Violence Profile No. 11, p. 63.
Hubbard, J., DeFleur, M.L., and DeFleur, L.B. (1975.) “Mass media influences on public conceptions of social problems.” Social Problems, 23: 22-34.
Kasinsky, R. “Patrolling the Facts: Media, Cops and Crime.” In Barak, Gregg (ed.). Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime. New York, NY: Garland Publishing Inc.
Lawrence, R.G. (1996). “Accidents, Icons and Indexing: The Dynamics of News Coverage of Police Use of Force.” Political Communication, 13:437-454.
Lofquist, William S. (1997) “Constructing “crime”: Media coverage of individual and organizational wrongdoing.” Justice Quarterly, 14(2): 243-263.
Mawbry, R. Visibility, transparency & police-media relations. Policing & Society, 1999, Vol. 9, pp. 263-286.
Nelson, T., Clawson, R. and Oxley, Z. (1997) “Media framing of a civil liberties conflict and its effect on tolerance.” American Political Science Review, September.
Perlmutter, D. (2000). Policing the Media: Street cops and public perceptions of law enforcement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Potter, G. and Kappeler, V. (eds.). (1998) Constructing crime: perspectives on making news and social problems. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 357p.
Roshier, B. (1981). “The selection of crime news by the press.” In S. Cohen & J. Young (eds.) The manufacture of the news: Deviance, social problems and the mass media. Pp. 40-51. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Sheley, J.F. & Ashkins, C.D. (1981). “Crime, crime news, and crime views,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 45, 492-506.
Sheley, J. (1986) Newspaper structuring of crime views: images of homicide in Cali, Colombia. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 10, (1), p. 115-126. Wichita, KS.
Skolnick, J.H. and McCoy, C. (1984) “Police Accountability and the Media”. American Bar Foundation Research Journal, V. 1984:3:521-557.
Surette, R. (1996). “News from nowhere, policy to follow: Media and the social construction of ‘three strikes and you’re out’.” In Shichor, D. and Sechrest, D. (eds.), Three strikes and you’re out” Vengeance as public policy, ed. by. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Tuchman, G. (1978). “Making News by Doing Work: Routinizing the Unexpected”. American Journal of Sociology, V. 79:1:110-131.
Williams, P. and Dickinson, J. (1993) Fear of Crime: Read all about it? The relationship between newspaper crime reporting and fear of crime. Brit. Journal of Criminology. 33 (1): Winter 993.


6) Media, police and race

Finally, the articles in this section are drawn from both academia and popular media to explore more closely how the interaction of media and police play out in the coverage of one specific area of societal concern.

Barak, G. (ed.). (1996) Representing O.J.: Murder, criminal justice and mass culture. Albany, NY: Harrow and Heston, Publishers.
Britton, N. (2000) “Examining police/black relations: what’s in a story?” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 3(4): 692-711.
Conaway, C. (1999) “Crown Heights: Politics and press coverage of the race war that wasn’t.” Polity. October.
Erlich, H. (1999) “Reporting ethnoviolence: Newspaper treatment of race and ethnic conflict,” in ed. Fred L. Pincus and Howard J. Erlich, Race and Ethnic Conflict: Contending views on prejudice, discrimination and ethnoviolence,. Denver: Westview Press.
Jacobs, R. (2000) Race, media and the crisis of civil society: From Watts to Rodney King. Cambridge, UK: University Press.
Leo, J. 2001. The media run riot. US News & World Report. 4/30/2001.
MacDonald, H. (2001) “What really happened in Cincinnati.” City Journal, 11:3.
Ripley, A. Nights of Rage: Another police killing, and Cincinnati explodes. TIME, April 23, 2001.
Weiss, A. and Chermak, S. (1998). “The news value of African-American victims: an examination of the media’s presentation of homicide. Journal of Crime and Justice, 21(2): 71-88.
Wortley, S.; Hagan, J.; and Macmillan, R. (1997). “Just des(s)erts? The racial polarization of perceptions of criminal injustice.” Law and Society Review, 31(4): 637-676.