News Media and Public Safety: Causes, Solutions, and Voices

• In Event: Exploring Conceptualizations of Safety: Gender, Stigma, and Public Discourses

Abstract

As issues of crime and justice become more prevalent in popular discourse, the idea of “public safety” has become less homogenous. This concept requires deeper examination to construct an evidence-informed definition upon which to build policy, inform research, and educate the public on criminal, legal, and social justice issues. The news media are a well-known and easily accessible medium through which laypeople build their own ideas around crime and public safety. The current study uses content analysis of 106 online newspaper articles for a period of five years across three study sites to examine how news media portrays topics surrounding violent crime and safety. After developing a consensus coding scheme, we coded articles for a variety of measures. The current work focuses on how the news media and those who are represented in articles portray local crime and public safety concerns, especially how these groups and individuals describe causes and proposed solutions. We find that there is a disconnect between the factors that are identified as driving crime and discussions about how communities can best address these problems. We also document that members with different personal and group identities differentially assign blame and propose solutions.

Authors

• Robert Boxerman, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Claire Greene, Webster University

• Sarah Kirk, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Konstadina Spanoudakis, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Lee Ann Slocum, University of Missouri-St. Louis