Fear of Crime and Mass Media Crime Reports Testing Similarity Hypotheses

Abstract

One function of the mass media is to provide the public with news on the discovery, tracking and prosecution of criminal offenses. In this paper, we discuss the effects such reporting may have on their audiences’ fear of crime. We begin with a brief survey of theories dealing with the relation between (ear and crime reports. It is of interest to observe that in the literature one finds references to a positive relationship (increase of fear), to a negative relationship (reduction of fear) and to claims that no relationship exists at all (zero effects). Our theoretical survey leads us to formulate five hypotheses, each of which will be tested experimentally. In closing we offer a summary of the more important test results and of the conclusions derived from them.