3. Media and Crime
3.2 How Media Frame Portrayals of Offenders, Victims, and Police
Dr. Chantal Faucher
In this section, we examine some of the ways in which crime and justice are constructed in media representations. A key concept in media studies, framing, is explained first. It is followed by a summary of some examples of ways in which criminal offending and offenders, victims of crime, and criminal justice personnel and their actions are framed in media coverage.
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. For example, you do not know if there were 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 felt. Likewise, in media framing, the media offer the audience a snapshot of events and there is always something left out of the frame. As Entman (1993, p. 52) states,
To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.
Altheide (1997, p. 651 – emphasis in original) further clarifies: “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.” Fleras (2011, pp. 36-37 – emphasis in original) adds that framing is not neutral:
More specifically, a media gaze reflects a tendency by a mainstream media to frame the social reality from an institutional point of view (i.e., predominantly straight, white, middle-aged, middle-class, male) as natural and normal, while dismissing other aspects as inferior and irrelevant, in the process drawing audiences into seeing like the media as if this seeing did not involve any perspective or bias.
Some of the ways in which stories can be framed to give them greater salience in newspapers is to cover them in the first place; to cover them intensely/repeatedly; to place them on the front page, at the top of the page; to use bold headlines; to include colour, photographs or other visuals; to have longer articles; and to use language that evokes emotion. (Carter, 2013; Conlin & Davie, 2015; Gilchrist, 2010; Sommers, 2017; Wong & Harraway, 2020; Wortley, 2002).
Framing can also be episodic or thematic (Carter, 2013; Clark, 2014; Lee & Wong, 2019; Schulenberg & Chenier, 2014; Surette, 2015). 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. For example, a man killed his wife. He was upset about their impending divorce. He used this