“Perhaps the lack of focus on Latino perpetration results from Latinos being framed as a ‘problem’ people in other areas besides crime-for example, immigration,” Dixon says. For whites, the numbers were 21 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Interestingly, Latinos, like whites, were less likely to be portrayed as criminals on television news (29 percent) than to be arrested in reality (47 percent). The distortion was even greater among Black felons-44 percent on the news vs. In comparing television news reports with actual crime statistics from the California Department of Justice, Dixon and Linz found that African Americans were clearly overrepresented as perpetrators-37 percent of all criminals on the news were Black vs. The ratio was even greater (more than 3.5 times) for white police vs. Also, Blacks were about 2.5 times more likely and Latinos almost twice as likely as whites to be depicted as felons (e.g., murderers, rapists, armed thieves, arsonists, etc.).įurthermore, both African Americans and Latinos were about four times more likely to be shown as lawbreakers than as police officers, while more than twice as many whites were depicted as law defenders than as criminals. “The presumption is that viewers embrace the version of the social world cultivated by television news and incorporate it into their view of social reality.”ĭixon and Daniel Linz, a professor of communication, law and society at the University of California, Santa Barbara, conducted a content analysis of 116 “breaking” news programs on seven commercial television stations covering Los Angeles and Orange counties during an eight-month period in 1995-96.Īccording to the study, which appears in the spring issue of the Journal of Communication, nearly 73 percent more African Americans and about 38 percent more Latinos than whites were portrayed as criminals. Dixon, U-M assistant professor of communication studies. “If the perpetrators of crime on television news are largely people of color and guardians of law usually white, then viewers of news programs may come to the conclusion that people of color are evil-doers who must be subdued,” says Travis L. ANN ARBOR-A new University of Michigan study not only corroborates prior research that African Americans are more likely than whites to be portrayed as criminals on television news, it also surprisingly reveals that Latinos are less likely to be depicted as perpetrators-when compared with actual crime statistics.Īlthough both Blacks and Latinos are more likely than whites to be shown as lawbreakers than as law defenders (i.e., police officers) in television news reports, Latinos-like whites-are, in fact, underrepresented as criminals while Blacks are overrepresented as lawbreakers.
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