Citation

Klein TV, Hodges Q. Crime Media Culture 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/17416590221091851

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Building on ethnic blame discourse, the social threat hypothesis, and media bias theories, this article makes a quantitative interreality comparison between homicide news coverage and homicide statistics in Baton Rouge, Louisiana--a city with one of the highest homicide rates in the United States of America.

FINDINGS reveal that Whites made up 2% of homicide victims in 2018 in Baton Rouge, but represented almost 40% of homicide victims in the news. Press releases issued by local law enforcement also overrepresented White homicide victims, as did follow-up stories.

FINDINGS on homicide suspects showed that Whites and Latinos were overrepresented, and Blacks were underrepresented.

Language: en

Keywords

Crime reporting; ethnic blame discourse; media distortion analysis; news representations of race; social threat hypothesis