The influence of community structure on crime news coverage: structural pluralism, ethnic diversity, and local crime news

Abstract

This study examines patterns of local newspaper crime coverage in terms of the community structure model, which is derived from the research of Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien. A total of 32 metropolitan statistical areas and primary metropolitan statistical areas, classified into four different categories of community according to the structural characteristics of structural pluralism and ethnic diversity, were selected for inclusion in this study. Crime news reports from the major newspaper of each selected community were analyzed based on the types of crimes (violent crime vs. property crime). These data were then compared to FBI crime statistics. In terms of the results, ethnic diversity was found to be a more important factor than structural pluralism in explaining the high proportion of violent crime coverage and the lesser amount of reportage of property crimes, as well as the discrepancies between the newspaper crime reports and the FBI crime statistics.