Fear of crime Flashcards
Schlesinger & Tumber
Found a correlation between media consumption & fear of crime, with tabloid readers & heavy users of TV expressing greater fear of becoming a victim, especially of physical attack & mugging. Other research has shown similar results, but the existence of correlations doesn’t prove that media viewing causes fear as it is a question of cause & effect: perhaps those most afraid of crime are most prone to reading about it & watching it.
Many Marxist & critical criminologists do believe that the media cause an exaggerated & irrational fear of crime. However, left realists argue that the fear is often rational & grounded in real risks.
Interpretivists & others also point out that if we want to understand the possible effects of the media, we must look at the meanings people give to what they see & read. E.g. viewers are likely to give very different meanings to violence in cartoons, horror films & news bulletins.
Jewkes (2015) points out that fear of crime is difficult to measure
