Public perception of crime and attitudes toward police: Examining the effects of media news

Abstract

This study reports a two-stage research on how newspaper reporting of crime influence public’s perception. The first stage measures the amount of space and prominence given to crime, particularly sex and violent crime in three most circulated daily newspapers in Hong Kong. The second stage of the study was a questionnaire survey of the relationship between 1) newspaper reporting of crime and fear of crime and 2) newspaper reporting of crime and attitudes toward police efficiency on releasing crime information to public. Differences were found between newspapers: newspapers classified as “sensational” carried proportionally more crime reports and reported crimes in a relatively sensational style than the newspaper that classified as “non-sensational”. Consistent results indicated that sensational newspapers tended to influence public’s perception of fear of crime and attitude towards police more negatively than non-sensational type of newspaper.