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The Reporting of the Murder and the Invariant Civil Concern of Risk

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The Civil Power of the News

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Abstract

The news was at its most tendentious when engaging with the risk that the murder posed for civil society. Ultimately, the press worked to assuage the fears of insecurity of the middle classes and to encourage the authorities to put measures in place that would protect them on trains. Whereas the middle-class interest in the murder was seen as reasonable, the lower-class interest was seen as a testimony to their mob-like, criminal and mawkish nature which, combined, formed a serious threat to Victorian civil society. Overall, the press emphasised that it should be left to the legitimate authorities to enhance personal security and to minimise the social level of risk.

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  1. Department of Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Jackie Harrison

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  1. Jackie Harrison
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Correspondence to Jackie Harrison .

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Harrison, J. (2019). The Reporting of the Murder and the Invariant Civil Concern of Risk. In: The Civil Power of the News. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19381-2_8

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