Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Crime Statistics in the News pp 65–78Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Media Representations of Crime Statistics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 1016 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter examines the way in which crime statistics are presented to the public and articulated in the news. It assesses the use of crime statistics by journalists when they articulate and produce their stories. It also discusses crime statistics as a news source and its use by journalists to produce, contextualise and substantiate their stories. The main question explored in this chapter is: how is statistical data relating to crime managed and used in the newsroom by journalists and news editors to construct stories that relate to crime? Focusing on this question, the chapter offers initial insights into how crime-related statistics are gathered, managed and presented to the public.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Allan, S. (2004). News culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barlow, M., Barlow, D., & Chiricos, T. (1995). Economic conditions and ideologies of crime in the media: A content analysis of crime news. Crime & Delinquency, 41(1), 3–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battersby, M. (2010). Is that a Fact? Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • BBC. (2017). Homicide and knife crime rates ‘up in England and Wales’. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39729601

  • Bennett, J. (2006). Modernity and its critics. In J. S. Dryzek, B. Honig, & A. Phillips (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of political theory (pp. 211–224). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berkowitz, D., & TerKeurst, J. V. (1999). Community as interpretive community: Rethinking the journalist-source relationship. Journal of Communication, 49(3), 125–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Best, J. (2012). Damned lies and statistics: Untangling numbers from the media, politicians, and activists. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (2000). For a scholarship with commitment. Profession, 40–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (1999). Uses of expertise: Sources, quotes, and voice in the reporting of genetics in the news. Public Understanding of Science, 8(4), 285–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Couldry, N., Hepp, A., & Krotz, F. (2009). Media events in a global age. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, N. (2008). Flat earth news: An award-winning reporter exposes falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media. London: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deuze, M. (2002). National news cultures: A comparison of Dutch, German, British, Australian, and US journalists. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 79(1), 134–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ditton, J., & Duffy, J. (1983). Bias in the newspaper reporting of crime news. The British Journal of Criminology: An International Review of Crime and Society, 23(2), 159–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franklin, B., & Carlson, M. (2011). Sources, credibility and the continuing crisis of UK journalism. Journalists, Sources and Credibility: New Perspectives, 90–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gans, H. J. (1980). Deciding what’s news NBC. A study of CBS Evening News Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time. New York: Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. Abingdon-on-Thames, OX: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J., & Roberts, B. (1978). The social production of news. In S. Hall (Ed.), Policing the crisis; Mugging, the state and law and order (pp. 53–60). London: Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kamisar, Y. (1972). How to use, abuse -and fight back with- crime statistics. Oklahoma Law Review, 25, 239–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, E., & Dayan, D. (1992). Media events: The live broadcasting of history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kruvand, M. (2012). “Dr. Soundbite” the making of an expert source in science and medical stories. Science Communication, 34(5), 566–591.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levi, M. (2006). The media construction of financial white-collar crimes. British Journal of Criminology, 46(6), 1037–1057.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, J., Williams, A., & Franklin, B. (2008). A compromised fourth estate? UK news journalism, public relations and news sources. Journalism Studies, 9(1), 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lugo-Ocando, J., & Faria Brandão, R. (2015). STABBING NEWS: Articulating crime statistics in the newsroom. Journalism Practice, 10(6), 715–729. doi:10.1080/17512786.2015.1058179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martinisi, A. (2017). Understanding quality of statistics in news stories: A theoretical approach from the audience’s perspective. In Handbook of research on driving STEM learning with educational technologies (pp. 485–505). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinisi, A., & Lugo-Ocando, J. (2015). Overcoming the objectivity of the senses: Enhancing journalism practice through Eastern philosophies. International Communication Gazette, 77(5), 409–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Keefe, G., & Reid-Nash, K. (1987). Crime news and real-world blues the effects of the media on social reality. Communication Research, 14(2), 147–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ONS. (2017). Crime in England and Wales: Year ending Mar 2017. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved June 12, 2017, from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmar2017

  • Pahre, R. (1995). Positivist discourse and social scientific communities: Towards an epistemological sociology of science. Social Epistemology, 9(3), 233–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pahre, R. (1996). Mathematical discourse and cross-disciplinary communities: The case of political economy. Social Epistemology, 10(1), 55–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parker, I. (1999). Qualitative data and the subjectivity of ‘objective’ facts. Research fails unless it engages with subjectivity. In D. Dorling & L. Simpson (Eds.), Statistics in society. The arithmetic of politics (pp. 83–88). London: Arnold.

    Google Scholar 

  • Preston, P. (2008). Making the news: Journalism and news cultures in Europe. Abingdon-on-Thames, OX: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sacco, V. (1995). Media constructions of crime. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 141–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlesinger, P., & Tumber, H. (1994). Reporting crime. The media politics of criminal justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silverman, J. (2010). Addicted to getting drugs wrong. British Journalism Review, 21(4), 31–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taibbi, M. (2014). The divide: American injustice in the age of the wealth gap. New York: Spiegel & Grau.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tarde, G. (2005 [1890]). The laws of imitation. New York: Holt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuchman, G. (1972). Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity. American Journal of sociology, 77(4), 660–679.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wacquant, L. (2011). From ‘public criminology’ to the reflexive sociology of criminological production and consumption a review of public criminology? by Ian Loader and Richard Sparks (London: Routledge, 2010). British Journal of Criminology, 51(2), 438–448.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wien, C. (2005). Defining objectivity within journalism. Nordicom Review, 26(2), 3–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, P., & Dickinson, J. (1993). Fear of crime: Read all about it? The relationship between newspaper crime reporting and fear of crime. British Journal of Criminology, 33(1), 33–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zelizer, B. (1993). Journalists as interpretive communities. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 10(3), 219–237.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Media and Communications, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Jairo Lugo-Ocando

Authors
  1. Jairo Lugo-Ocando
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lugo-Ocando, J. (2017). Media Representations of Crime Statistics. In: Crime Statistics in the News. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39841-3_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39841-3_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-39840-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-39841-3

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation