What Does the Media Have to Say? Sex Offenders and Murderers

• In Event: Roundtable: Crime and the Media

Abstract

Over recent decades, attention surrounding sex offenders has greatly increased as sensational stories of these offenders have become a matter of public interest and concern. Previous research has found that sex offenders are often portrayed as compulsive, specialists, homogeneous, and incurable in the media. Like sex offenders, murderers are often negatively portrayed by the media. Female murderers in particular are vilified and seen as violating the basic assumptions of femininity. No research to our knowledge has compared the ways in which sex offenders and murderers are portrayed by the media. The current study seeks to address this gap in the literature. The portrayal of sex offenders and murderers is explored through a sample of newspaper articles published over a five year period. The articles are gathered through a national search of U.S. newspapers using LexisNexis. MaxQDA software is utilized to analyze the data. Implications for policies and future research are discussed.

Authors

• Kristen Stives, Mississippi State University

• David May, Mississippi State University