Crime In Canad A Comparison Between Perception And Reality

The contrast between what is presented in the media and the reality of these facts impact the public in many ways. Crime in Canada is something that is portrayed in the media and quite often is subjective based on the media perceptions giving only their point of view. This essay will look at crime in Canada and how mass media makes decisions as to what stories they will show the public, once they have picked the story what angle do they report, is it positive or negative? What do consumers demand in terms of content from the media? And how the media impacts the public’s perceptions of what is presented.

There are different types of media that are used to report crime to the public. Analyzing the different types of media gives the audience

In an article for Perception and Reality, it explains that Canadians want criminals to have harsher punishments and the majority of Canadian want the death penalty to come back (Perception and Reality, 2007). People opinions want to see that the justice system is giving fair punishment for crimes that they have committed. Consumers also demand entertainment and want to leads the media to present information that could not be entirely true(American Press Institute, 2014).. For example with Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford, they highlight the fact that he smoked crack cocaine, but didn’t highlight the fact that he had good

According to an article on perception and reality, that did an Ipsos Reid opinion poll found that 12 percent of Canadian think that crime rate is declining and 46 percent of Canadian think that crime is going up (Perception and Reality, 2007). This shows that Canadians are influenced by the news and how the media can present information that is one sided. With the perception of Canadians are believing that crime is going up, shows that they are in fear something happening to them. The Robert Pickton case is an example of how people perceptions change on what is being reported in the media. For example, the fact that the police knew that Pickton was a suspect but did not apprehend Pickton until dozens of women were reported missing in Vancouver (Hutchinson, 2012). This paints a public opinion of how police aren’t doing their job. People’s opinions are grasping on how nobody cared and how this information was unreported. This case negatively impacted missing women investigations and the police’s failure to prioritize these types of cases. Stranger crimes that are presented in the media also impact people in many ways. These crimes give people a false sense of security; it also impacts parents to teach their children to be afraid of strangers (Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime, n.d). The media impacts the public emotionally and reports crimes that they feel are significant and