Michael Koontz

Michael Koontz

Soc 111

MWF 10:00 -10:50

484 words

 

Jodi Lane and James Meeker, authors of Ethnicity, Information Source, and Fear of Crime,  wanted to know the type of influence the media and perceived fear had over Whites and Latinos, and also see if education, age, gender, community, culture had anything to do with how they perceived the news. The researchers speculated people who live in high crime areas would have different interpretation information and have a different level of fear to crime than someone who lives in a low crime area.  

A digital survey was conducted in Orange County randomly sampling equal number of men and women to scale from 1-4 the fear level if one of these eight crimes would have happen to them, home evasion, assault, etc. Responded were asked what type of media outlet the used to get their news, if they have been a victim of a crime, and what area they lived in. They than compared the effects between newspaper and T.V, then just newspaper for Whites and Latinos, and then just television.

What they found is young people who live in high crime areas and who have been a victim of one of the eight crime and got their news information from television had a higher rate of fear. But older people, people who lived in other parts of the county and was not a victim from one of the eight crime were not as afraid. Researcher's concluded that people who received their information from newspaper had a higher education and or were older. Also television and newspaper have different ways of delivering information. T.V can make more of a connection while newspaper are about stats and trends. People could actually visibly see the aftermath of the crime and often times were reported in neighborhoods that looked like theirs which heighted the fear. While newspaper only tell you who committed the crime and where it happen.

In the article Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluation of Neighborhood Crime what to know the reason why some people associate higher crimes with black neighborhoods. To conduct this survey, researchers use three sources of data that dealt with the person being interview and the neighborhood. The three sources are Crime Factors and neighborhoods decline in Chicago study, the Testing Theories of Criminally and Victimization in Seattle study, and Crime Changes In Baltimore.

The Chicago study and Crime Changes in Baltimore randomly interview Thousands of people and focused on people and their perception of crime and neighborhoods, while the Testing of Criminality and Victimization in Seattle focused more the person attitudes and experience of a crime.

What researchers found is there is a strong assumption between young black males and high crime in a neighborhood even though there no crime being committed. Researchers cannot accurately explain why without speculation, why white people will move out or not move into a neighborhood where African American live.