How the Media Frame Portrayals of Offenders, Victims, and the Police

1. How the Media Frame Portrayals of Offenders, Victims, and the Police

In order to examine some of the ways in which crime and justice are constructed in media representations, we will begin by discussing framing, a key concept in media studies. We will then look at some examples of ways in which criminal offenses and offenders, victims of crime, and criminal justice personnel and their actions are framed in media coverage.

1a. Framing

Think of a picture in a frame. The frame sets the limits of what you can see, and you do not necessarily know the context outside of what appears in the image within the frame. You do not have access to the broader background. You do not know if there are more people present than those you see within the frame. You rely on the facial expressions of those in the picture to understand how it feels.

Likewise, in media framing, the media offer the audience a snapshot of events, and there is always something left out of the frame.

Frames are the focus (a parameter or boundary) for discussing a particular event. Frames focus on what will be discussed, how it will be discussed, and, above all, how it will not be discussed. Framing is not neutral:

Here are some of the ways in which stories can be framed to give them greater prominence in newspapers:

• Covering them in the first place
• Covering them intensely/repeatedly
• Placing them on the front page, at the top of the page
• Using bold headlines
• Including color, photographs, or other visuals
• Having longer articles
• Using language that evokes emotion

Framing can also be episodic or thematic. Episodic frames discuss crimes as individual events generally unrelated to other events or any broader context. Episodic frames are the most commonly used type of framing in crime reporting. They are simple and easy to understand.

EXAMPLE

A man killed his wife. He was upset about their impending divorce. He used his weapon. The police have arrested him.

In contrast, thematic frames discuss events in their broader context.

EXAMPLE

An instance of a man killing his wife could be discussed as part of a broader pattern of violence against women in society or, at the very least, as the culmination of a pattern of abuse within their relationship. Such a story is more complex and meaningful in terms of understanding why such events take place in our society.

Research on the media coverage of domestic homicides suggests that the media rely on episodic formats, blame victims for the incident (e.g., arguments they had with the perpetrator, what the victim did to provoke the attack, promiscuous behavior, or why the victim did not leave), provide excuses for the perpetrators’ behavior (e.g., mental state, financial problems, intoxication, or inability to control their emotions), but they fail to convey the broader context. Domestic homicides are generally deemed less newsworthy and tend to receive less coverage and less striking coverage than non-domestic homicides (Wong & Lee, 2018).

did you know

Fairbairn and Dawson (2013) compared news coverage from the late 1970s to coverage at the turn of the 21st century and found some improvements over time in the frequency of reporting on a history of intimate partner violence preceding domestic homicides. However, only 18% of stories reported on this background factor.

term to know

Framing

Fitting a story into a ready-made social construction such that it is easy for the audience to understand and interpret.

1b. Crime, Criminal Offenders, and Deviant “Others”

Following the idea that news stories are selected based on the newsworthiness criteria, a clear tendency emerges with respect to crime news: The rarest crimes receive the most coverage, while the most common crimes rarely receive coverage. As such, violent crimes, and especially murders or violent crimes committed by women, are vastly overrepresented in crime coverage and in the media, whereas the much more prevalent property crimes are underrepresented.

In addition, crimes that are particularly dramatic, sensational, or bizarre are more likely to be covered in the media. This situation leaves the audience (who rely on media for information) with a distorted picture of crime that is practically the opposite of the reality of crime occurring in our society—this is referred to as the backward law.

Not only is the crime portrayed in the media out of proportion to its actual occurrence in society, but there is also an emphasis on particular groups of offenders and victims:

• Visible minorities
• Gangsters
• People separated by class

Visible minorities are more likely to be portrayed as offenders than White people; however, they are less likely than White people to be portrayed as victims or as law enforcement personnel (Intravia & Pickett, 2019). Also, the concept of the racialization of crime raises the idea that when racial minorities are responsible for crimes, the cause of their criminality is linked to their cultural origins, whereas White people’s crimes are not blamed on their Whiteness (Chan & Mirchandani, 2002). Race, in fact, is rarely explicitly stated in media coverage; therefore, it may be more noticeable when it is mentioned, particularly in contexts where the racial identification matches racial stereotypes.

Another common media frame is the “gangster.” Media tend to portray gangs as having well-established leaders and being highly organized and hierarchical, violent, and sophisticated in the drug trade, all of which are at odds with what is known about most gangs. It may serve police interests, however, to portray gangs as more organized than they actually are when it comes to seeking more resources in their fight against gangs.

EXAMPLE

Gushue et al. (2018) examined newspaper coverage pertaining to Jamie, Jonathan, and Jarrod Bacon from 2004 to 2015. The coverage generally portrayed them as sophisticated and powerful gang members who posed a significant public safety risk because of their dangerous enemies. The most commonly occurring keyword in the coverage was “brother,” and the coverage portrayed the brothers as a family, not as individuals. Information about different brothers was mentioned in articles about a single brother, even when this information was irrelevant. Shows of family support were also emphasized, creating the image of a Sopranos-like crime family.

They may have been considered more newsworthy due to a lack of fit with the stereotype of ethnic minority youth gangs than due to their actual criminality: They were from a homegrown “normal” family, and they fit into the popular narrative of “crime families.”

The framing of issues along lines of race can also be observed in the media coverage of opioid overdose deaths, as can the framing of issues along lines of class. Criminologists Webster et al. (2020) argue that White and middle-class people who become addicted are portrayed as innocent victims, and efforts are made within the coverage to distinguish these users from “street users.” The focus of the coverage is on “normal,” White, middle-class young people from “good families” who overdose.

EXAMPLE

These stories include photographs and interviews with family and friends. These young people are portrayed as innocent victims of evil drug dealers and foreign drug manufacturers.

On the other hand, such coverage ignores the severity of the problem among other populations. Opioid addiction in minority communities is presented as a chronic community issue, and few personal stories or photos are used.

terms to know

Backward Law

The idea that the way in which the media present crime and justice issues is the opposite of the way in which these phenomena occur in real life.

Racialization of Crime

The assumption that the crimes committed by racial minorities can be explained by their race.

1c. Crime Victims

Just as media portrayals of offenders rely on stereotypes, so too do portrayals of victims. Christie (1986, p. 18) argued that there are certain types of people who “when hit by crime—most readily are given the complete and legitimate status of being a victim.” He referred to being given this status at the societal level, but we certainly see the ideal victim stereotype play out in the media as well. He described an ideal victim as one who would be perceived as weak, was confronted by a “big and bad” offender, was engaged in respectable activities, could not possibly be blamed for their victimization, was unacquainted with the person who harmed them, and had sufficient social power to have their victim status recognized and to receive sympathy.

EXAMPLE

Kilty and Frigon (2016) examined the extensive media coverage of serial killers Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo’s three known victims: Tammy Homolka, Leslie Mahaffy, and Kristen French. Although all three victims were young White women, Kristen French, who was kidnapped while walking home from school, most closely conformed to the ideal victim stereotype. During the period they studied, they found over five times more articles about the murder of Kristen French than about the murder of Tammy Homolka, who was related to her attackers. There were also about 20% more stories about Kristen French than about Leslie Mahaffy, who was coming home past curfew on the night she was abducted by Homolka and Bernardo.

In contrast to these young White victims, some victims do not receive nearly as much, if any, media coverage of their assaults, sexual assaults, disappearances, and murders. A large number of Indigenous women and girls have gone missing and been murdered in the United States and Canada over the last several decades. The media have been slow to cover these cases, and the coverage has been underwhelming.

EXAMPLE

In examining the coverage of the missing and murdered women from Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, Canada, Jiwani and Young (2006) explained that these victims did not conform to the ideal victim stereotype: They were minority women in the wrong place at the wrong time and engaged in activities that would not be considered “respectable.” The examination of the limited news coverage (128 stories) of these cases found that these stories were framed for viewers as:

• Missing women who were mostly Indigenous drug-addicted sex trade workers
• One deviant man’s actions
• Inadequate and ineffective police action
• A horror story about a pig farm and contaminated meat

Such frames offer very little understanding of what happened and why. The authors describe what was virtually absent from the coverage: the larger structural context of these women’s lives, colonialism, racism, sexism, the condition of the women’s homes and communities, and the broader issue of violence against women.

IN CONTEXT

Gilchrist (2010) examined press coverage of six missing and murdered women, none of whom were known to be involved in the sex trade and none of whose families believed had run away. Three of them were Indigenous women, and three were White women. There were 3.5 times fewer stories about the disappearances and deaths of the Indigenous women. Not only were the White women’s cases mentioned much more often, but they also included lengthier articles, were more likely to appear on the front page and in the front sections of the newspaper, the headlines referred to them by name, included emotional messages from family and friends, and were accompanied by more and larger photographs.

Victim-blaming discourses, with regard to the Indigenous women, were included in the coverage and often blamed the victims for their behaviors or attributes (e.g., how they were dressed, where they were, and what they were doing) such that any empathy the public may have felt for the Indigenous women was somehow muted.

The term “missing White woman syndrome” refers to the phenomena described in the last example. Certain people who go missing are more likely to have their cases reported in the media and more likely to receive extensive coverage. The intersectionality of race, gender, and class appears to enter into the differential valuation of various victims. The message the media send with such discrepancies in coverage is that some lives are more valuable than others and the audience will care more about certain victims than others. It also signals to perpetrators which targets are easier and that some victims are more deserving of our collective sympathy and (search/police) resources.

terms to know

Ideal Victim

The socially constructed victim who is seen as weaker than their attacker and blameless and with whom the audience will readily sympathize.

Victim-Blaming Discourse

A way of talking about victims and victimization that places at least part of the responsibility for the harm done to the victim on their own behavior or attributes (e.g., how they were dressed, what they said, where they were, what they were doing, and which measures they took to defend themselves).

Missing White Woman Syndrome

Researchers generally attribute this term to Gwen Ifill, PBS news anchor, referring to the far more frequent and intense news coverage of instances where White women or girls go missing compared to instances where the missing persons are not White or not female.

1d. Law Enforcement

As noted earlier, the police and media have a mutually beneficial relationship that allows the police to be the primary definers of crime news. Their views will be presented first, more regularly, and with authority. Those who come into conflict with the police may have a difficult time having their views represented in mainstream media.

However, in recent years, we have seen instances in which the hierarchy of credibility shifts away from the police, particularly when police misbehavior is captured by “citizen journalists” and disseminated to the public. Images and video of the deaths of citizens at the hands of police can indicate to the public that the police are the problem. When people post videos on social media, police behaviors are depicted as “brutality” and in violation of civil rights.

Such shifts in representations of police behavior may also depend on the political orientation of the news outlets publishing the information.

IN CONTEXT

Chama (2019) compared the views of readers of two New York tabloids on their representation of instances of police brutality and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement more generally. The New York Post, criticized for being highly sensational and displaying conservative bias, was felt by readers to offer a generally more unfavorable portrayal of BLM.

The newspaper blamed the movement for confrontations with the police and tended to portray Black people as criminals, White people as victims, and the police as good people who were justified in their actions against Black people. The New York Daily News, while also quite sensational, was seen by readers as offering more positive representations of African Americans and a more positive view of BLM, while portraying the police as racist and dysfunctional and questioning police behavior.

We can also see negative and distorted images of the police in entertainment media, where the police have little influence over media content.

There are three main stereotypes of the police that have been developed in crime films over time:

• “Lampooned police” (satirical representations of the police as bumbling and incompetent)
• “G-men” (professional and efficient crime fighters)
• “Cops” (hypermasculine aggressive crime-fighting soldiers, with subtypes emerging as time moves forward)

As with most stereotypes, these representations fail to capture all or even most police officers’ realities and come with negative consequences, such as discrediting the police as incompetent or creating a restrictive image of policing that excludes women.

EXAMPLE

Huey and Broll (2015) interviewed 31 police investigators about the ways in which certain aspects of their job were portrayed in television crime shows. While some acknowledged that the media portrayals of police work did contribute to their career choice, they also admitted that the reality of their work had little to do with the sanitized, glamorous, exciting image of police investigations seen in shows such as CSI. The officers interviewed talked about bad smells, combing through trash, being sleep deprived, being covered in grime from blood and fingerprinting dust, having to wear masks and other protective equipment, and being sweaty and uncomfortable.

These behind-the-scenes aspects of the reality of police work may not be as appealing to the media audience without first being “cleaned up” by the media producers.

REFERENCES

Chama, B. (2019). The Black Lives Matter movement, crime and police brutality: Comparative study of New York Post and New York Daily News. European Journal of American Culture, 38(3), 201–216. doi.org/10.1386/ejac_00002_1

Chan, W., & Mirchandani, K. (Eds.). (2002). Crimes of colour: Racialization and the criminal justice system in Canada. University of Toronto Press.

Christie, N. (1986). The ideal victim. In E. Fattah (Ed.), From crime policy to victim policy (pp. 17–30). Macmillan.

Entman, R. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 10, 155–173. doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x

Fairbairn, J., & Dawson, M. (2013). Canadian news coverage of intimate partner homicide: Analyzing changes over time. Feminist Criminology, 8(3), 147–176. doi.org/10.1177/1557085113480824

Fleras, A. (2011). The media gaze: Representations of diversity in Canada. UBC Press.

Gilchrist, K. (2010). “Newsworthy” victims?: Exploring differences in Canadian local press coverage of missing/murdered Aboriginal and White women. Feminist Media Studies, 10(4), 373–390. doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2010.514110

Gushue, K., Lee, C., Gravel, J., & Wong, J. S. (2018). Familiar gangsters: Gang violence, brotherhood, and the media’s fascination with a crime family. Crime & Delinquency, 64, 1612–1635. doi.org/10.1177/0011128716686340

Huey, L., & Broll, R. (2015). “I don’t find it sexy at all”: Criminal investigators’ views of media glamorization of police ‘dirty work.’ Policing and Society, 25(2), 236–247. doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2013.864654

Intravia, J., & Pickett, J. T. (2019). Stereotyping online? Internet news, social media, and the racial typification of crime. Sociological Forum, 34(3), 616–642. doi.org/10.1111/socf.12515

Jiwani, Y., & Young, M. L. (2006). Missing and murdered women: Reproducing marginality in news discourse. Canadian Journal of Communication, 31(4), 895–917. web.archive.org/web/20160314230220/http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/1825/1932

Kilty, J. M., & Frigon, S. (2016). The enigma of a violent woman: A critical examination of the case of Karla Homolka. Routledge.

Webster, F., Rice, K., & Sud, A. (2020). A critical content analysis of media reporting on opioids: The social construction of an epidemic. Social Science & Medicine, 244, Article e3112642. doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112642

Wong, J. S., & Lee, C. (2018). Extra! Extra! The importance of victim–offender relationship in homicide newsworthiness. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(9-10), 4186–4206. doi.org/10.1177/0886260518789142