effectiveness with regard to catching criminals and more fairness in their personal interactions with the police.) But where do these opinions originate, given that the participants acknowledged that they had very limited personal experience of the police and they did not refer to the media as an information source either? And how is it that their opinions correspond so closely to media content on crime and justice: the world is cruel and the justice system is unable to maintain law and order?
We believe that these contradictions can be resolved if we consider theories that model circular, non-direct and socially filtered interactions between the media and public opinion. If we accept Zaller’s argument, public opinion is necessarily a fuzzy and unsta- ble phenomenon, but one that still has some features that change only slowly over time (Zaller, 1992). Deeply rooted convictions and values are
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This argument, stated in its strongest form, would imply that the media do not influence people, but that people influence the media. We think that this would be an overstatement. It would imply, among others, that the media have no agenda of their own at all, that they simply mirror public opinion. This runs against both the findings of media studies as such and broader opinion on the role of the media in today’s society. For example, the participants in our focus groups claimed that the media indeed have an effect (on others). The statement’s weak form implies that, although the media do indeed reflect and reproduce general views and stereotypes, this does not mean that the media have no effect in themselves. The least we can say is that they reinforce the existing frames, that is, there is a two-way relationship between the media and public opinion. This formulation allows for some media effect