Fear Of Crime Media Essay

My research question seeks to address rates of crime media exposure on individuals’ perceptions, specifically on “fear of crime” or individuals’ perceived risk of victimization. This research is based on Gerbner’s mass media cultivation theory, which states that media exposure and media practices convey social ideas and norms. In conjunction with social constructionism which states that individuals gain secondary knowledge about the world and society from socially constructed entities such as the media. The latter has been applied to crime media research by both sociologists and criminologist since the 1960’s and has formed three distinct models on individuals’ perceptions. The three are the hypodermic needle which supports immediate effects, the limited effects model with the media as a secondary source of knowledge, and the subtle effects of no immediate noticeable effects. Given the above the perfect experiment would be to control the rates of crime media exposure individuals experience in their day-to-day media exposure. Manipulating the amount of media content, a participant consumes should fulfill the requirements. Participants would be limited to a set amount of crime media content a day ranging from absolutely none for the control to only crime media content for the experimental

To ensure compliance there will set technological restrictions preventing access to pure crime media content, with electronic monitoring on all forms of media. All though these restrictions may limit individuals ability to “harden” themselves against imminent threats exceptions will be made for crimes that may have and immediate effect on themselves in their daily lives. Such as the progression of a major crime such as school shootings, bombing incidents and crimes with active serial offenders among