Essay/Term paper: The media and the fear of victimization

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Society

The Media and the Fear of Victimization


Tonight's presenter spoke on the images of crime that are presented on
television and the media and how they affect the public perception on being
victimized. She gave examples of how the media has the tendency to often blow up
a situation so as to make it appear as if the nation is in some great peril. For
example if someone does a study on juvenile crime you can expect the media to
focus on juvenile crime and incidents that may be occurring across the nation.
Though the crime they are reporting is a portion of the normal crime that goes
on everyday and almost unnoticed for the most part but because of the attention
it is getting and the media's tendency to sensationalize events Americans all
of a sudden feel threatened by juvenile crime and demand that something be done.
Americans in other words are getting a false representation of the real
situation. Politicians who are eager to win votes however take advantage of the
situation by pushing punitive measures even though the reality is that crim e
figures do not agree with the reports. She also commented on the fact that the
media loves to report crimes (34%) of victimization when the victim is a white
woman and her is assailant is black. The reality is however that blacks are more
often victimized by blacks. The rate of black on white crime is now where near
34%. This predisposes white women to the fear that they will be victimized by a
black person, thus creating a bias towards blacks.
In regards to the candidate as a professor I feel that she didn't
involve the students enough. As a result of this I found her presentation boring
despite having an interesting topic. She failed to properly deliver her
presentation. She read from her notes entirely too much. She seemed very
reserved and almost shy at times, not what I expect from a professor.