THE IMPACT OF HOW CRIME NEWS ARE REPORTED IN NEWSPAPERS
Date Issued
2005
Date
2005
Author(s)
Hsiao, Hsien-Wen
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
Crime news reports in domestic newspapers have always been under tremendous criticism. Especially in recent years, in order to increase their volume of circulation, newspaper agencies, in the treatment of the crime news, not only emphasize sex and violence, but also exaggerate the stories themselves. This style of reports may influence not only the rights and interests of the relevant party of the crime case, but also the impression of the general public and operation of the judicial system even more. Previous relevant academic researches mainly focus on the text analysis of the crime news or the self-criticism of legal norm, but the ways that crime news are treated have never been touched upon.
The purposes of this exploratory research are to find out about the following three points: First, how is the general public influenced by the presence or absence of authoritative sources indicated in crime news reports? Second, how is the general public influenced by the ways that the leads of crime news reports are composed, i.e. the description tactics of the story and specific injured party and suspect? Third, how is the general public influenced by reports unfavorable, neutral or favorable to the suspect?
This research adopted the posttest-only design of the independent-treatments design of the laboratory experiment. I try to manipulate three kinds of report tactics( three independent variables) in order to find out their influence on people’s cognition and attitude( five dependent variables: Guilty to assert , memory degree , taste degree , belief degree, and encroachment on human rights of suspect). With 2×2×3 of three factor experimental design, the main and the interactive effects among dependent and independent variables are explored. This research includes 336 students of National Taiwan University as the study objects, applies SPSS 11.0 as an analytic tools, and applies factorial ANOVA, factorial ANCOVA, Pearson’s correlation, t test, one way ANOVA, Tukey’s HSD, Scheffé’s method, and Fisher’s LSD as statistic methods.
After statistical analysis, the experimental results are as follow:
A.With the description unfavorable to suspects, crime news reports in newspapers are most likely to make people believe suspects guilty.
B.With the tactics of direct descriptions of the story and specific suspect and injured party in the lead, crime news reports in newspapers are most likely to make people consider crime news encroaching on the rights of the relevant parties.
C.With the tactics of direct descriptions of the story and specific suspect and injured party in the lead, crime news reports in newspapers are easiest to make people remember the news.
D.With simple report of the crime type, possible suspects and the circumstances of the crime case in the lead, crime news reports in newspapers are most likely to attract people.
E.With descriptions neutral to suspect, crime news reports in newspapers are most likely to attract people.
F.With the description neutral or favorable to suspects, crime news reports in newspapers are most likely to gain people’s trust.
G.There are interactive effects between “authoritative source indication” and “the tactics of the story.” With authoritative sources indicated and simple report of the crime type, possible suspects and the circumstances of the crime case in the lead, crime news reports in newspapers are most likely to win people’s trust.
H.Gender, age, education and frequency of utilization of media have all brought interference results to different extent. Among them, gender and age are the most significant.
I.The best way to report crime news: (1) In crime news reports, authoritative sources, such as the police, DA, or forensic investigators, should be indicated, in order to get people’s trust; (2) In the lead of crime news reports, the types of crimes, possible suspect and the circumstances of the case should be specified in order to win people’s trust and favor while decreasing the possibility of the encroachment on human rights of suspects; (3) In crime news reports, the descriptions should be neutral to the suspect, in order to win people’s trust and favor, and decrease the possibility of the public’s guilty assert on the suspect.
Subjects
新聞導言
新聞客觀性
媒體審判
犯罪新聞
新聞記憶
消息來源
crime news
news source
lead
news objectivity
media trial
news memory
SDGs
Type
other
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-94-R91342003-1.pdf
Size
23.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):445ff565366ae052a242d9cab4286c3b