fear of victimization

Brendan
Devine
February 24, 1997The Media and the Fear of VictimizationTonight'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 crime 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.