The Media Reflection of Crime

The diversity of theorical approaches to relationship between media and crime have revealed the fact that the influence of the media can be conceptualized both negatively and positively, depending on the perspective adopted. This article is an attempt to identify the indicators of "newsworthiness", to analyses the content of crime news, and to explore mutual interaction between crime news with the social structure in shaping criminal behavior. The method of this research is descriptive, and content analysis of media coverage of the crime has also been used for collecting date. Findings & While the possibility of a causal relationship between the media consumption and behavioral response is downplay by most media academics, it is accepted that those who work in the media, do have some degree of influence in terms of what potential stories they select and how they then organize them, defining or amplifying some issues over others. The news values illustrate that the news media do not cover systematicallt all forms of crime and victimization, and that they pander to the most voyeuristic desire of the audience by exaggerating and dramatizing relatively unusual crime, while ignoring the crime that are most likely to happen to the average person.