Media representation of victims of violent crime
Kirsten Simmons and Ben Letts
April 1997 (rev.)
Do Canadian news media misrepresent victims of violent crimes? This study tested the hypotheses that stories about acts of homicide would be more numerous than other kinds of violent crimes, and that female victims of violent crimes would receive more coverage than their male counterparts, when compared to the actual incidence of violent crimes and the gender of victims. The study took both quantitative and qualitative approaches, relying on stories collected from The Vancouver Sun and The Province.
A keyword search for homicide, sexual assault and non-sexual assault over a three-month period (1 August 1996 - 31 October 1996) yielded 256 articles. Homicide stories were the most frequent, accounting for 157 stories in the two newspapers. Sexual assault stories amounted to 54 and non-sexual assault stories followed with 45. Coverage in the two newspapers was similar, with The Sun reporting slightly more stories on violent crime. When compared to the actual incidence of the three types of violent crime, these findings indicate that homicide is greatly exaggerated.
A content analysis of 120 articles dealing with violent crime provided a qualitative dimension to the study. Sixty articles were chosen from each newspaper, with 40 from each of the three topic areas. Articles were coded for length, story type, and gender and age of victims. Some results were unexpected. For example, story headlines were more likely to refer to the offender of a violent crime rather than to the victim.
The quantitative findings supported the hypothesis: stories involving homicide received three times as much coverage as other types of violent crime. The qualitative results were more surprising: offenders received more coverage than victims, in terms of supporting sources and story headlines. Gender did not play a role in determining the type of coverage a victim received. Age seemed to be more operative, as younger victims received more coverage than older victims, disproportionate to the actual statistics.