Investigating the Effects of Crime Representation in News and Media Reports with Emphasis on Crime Prevention

Media representation of crime plays a major role in orienting public opinion and decision of criminal justice authorities. Zooming in on criminal news and exaggerating crime rates and stereotyping the image of criminals and victims, downplaying some of the crimes, emphasizing the representation of specific crimes, reflects the unrealistic representation of crime in media news. In this regard, the present study seeks to provide a more realistic view of the criminal event than its media representation by describing the impact of crime representation on the criminal justice system.

The method used in this study is descriptive-analytical and among the descriptive methods the content analysis method was used. To this end, news content and media reports were analyzed.

The findings of this study show that the media fabrication of crime is mostly associated with distortions in media news dissemination, and this causes the irreparable effects on the face of the criminal justice system. The magnification of media reports, on the one hand, creates moral panic and criminal populism, or violates fair trial, and on the other hand, the downplaying of some crimes and heroism and the cleansing of criminals makes criminals free from criminal justice. Sometimes specific representations of crimes also reinforce normative and crime education. Therefore, monitoring and monitoring news and media reports can be very effective in crime prevention