Carmen Esqueda

The Statistics Showing Peoples Sense of Fear Due to Media and Crime

A few studies have been done to research the fear of crime people have towards ethnicities other than their own.  One study conducted had only white participants and the questions asked pertained to blacks.  One of the questions was about the proximity of blacks within a white neighborhood.  The results proved whites to have a high fear of blacks because they related blacks to crime.  Even though this study was conducted more than a decade ago, something's do not change although this time around the studies included Hispanics.  The studies conducted included participants residing in south Florida and the cities surrounding south Florida.  The variables consisted of age, gender, education, and income.  In addition, the question about proximity of blacks living in the neighborhood was part of the study this time including Hispanics within that question.  The results again proved fear exist, but this time among blacks and Hispanics.  Overall, Hispanics and blacks rated high and when it came to the females SD (.50) and age placed high age SD (16.84).  Considering the study was more recent than the original one the results could have changed/increased because there is more crime being committed within inner cities and through out the United States.  In addition, more people have become victims to criminal acts, so that alone was the cause of having a heightened sense of fear.  Respondents with high income SD (1.20) and education SD (1.16) rate low to having a sense of fear towards anyone.  The studies also proved that when a race is low in numbers within their community they have a sense of fear towards other ethnicities living close by are in their neighborhood. 

The media plays a big role when it comes to influencing peoples' perception of other ethnicities and crime.  Media stigmatizes ethnicities to be of a certain nature and never in a positive light.  Therefore, some studies have been conducted to prove media from either television or that a simple newspaper can influence the sense of fear people have due to crime being reported.  This study only used participants at random that are white N= (555) and Latino N=(224) all representing the Orange County, California population.  The dependent variable is the question to be answered by the respondents and that is to rate their level of fear and how much they fear certain acts of crime, so that makes the variables to be the source of news, once again gender, age and education.  Results had shown that people reading the newspaper have a higher sense of fear when crimes are reported in their neighborhood versus if the crime happened elsewhere the level of fear is low.  Now television compared to newspaper differs because the results shown prove that race did not matter overall, the two races feared crime just the same.  It all depended if people were watching high crime shows, or if television was their only source of news, also if crime was reported about a different city then the people feared that specific area instead of their own.  The findings in this study are similar to the other article because women (white women) 52.3% have high levels of fear and those who have been a victim to a crime 21.6%.  Young people ranging in ages 25 to 34 among latinos is 36.6% and whites rated high between the ages of 35 to 44 27.9%.  When it came to education Latinos with little education rated high at 27.7% and whites with some education rated at 27.9%.  Overall, I believe fear is present all over the country due to media.

 

Articles:

Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime

Ethnicity, Information Sources, and Fear of Crime