The Picture Tells the Story: Photographic Depictions of Female Offenders in Front-Page Newspaper Stories

• In Event: Race, Ethnicity and Fear in the Media

Abstract

Most examinations of media portrayals of crime and offenders focus on the textual narratives of crime stories, and generally suggest that racial and ethnic minorities are inclined to be depicted as dangerous, crime prone, drug-involved, and otherwise socially-troubled. But, findings from such research may not be telling the full story if one considers that most people do not read news stories in their entirety. Rather, most consumers look only at photographs, captions, and headlines. We believe that photographic images are critical to one’s determination of offender race and ethnicity, as well as overall story tone. For these reasons, we first assess a story’s tone and attempt to determine the race/ethnicity of a female offender absent an accompanying photograph. We then focus solely on story photographs, captions, and headlines. The visual and narrative aspects of a story are then considered in tandem to determine whether a story’s narrative is influenced by a linked image. We believe stories about minority women will be more negative than stories about white women, but visual priming will be especially critical to an assessment of newspaper content and messages about racial and ethnic minorities.

Authors

• Danielle Cindy Slakoff, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Pauline Brennan, University of Nebraska at Omaha