Affective and Cognitive Processes As Mediators of Media Influences on Crime-Policy Preferences

Mira Sotirovic

45 citations0/0 files storedMass Communication & Society

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Media Studies and Communication Crime Patterns and Interventions Crime, Deviance, and Social Control

Abstract

This study examines the effects of individuals' media use patterns on the interplay of affect and cognition in forming citizens' preferences for 2 distinctive crime policies: punitive and preventive. The results of a survey conducted with a probability sample of 395 adult residents of Madison, Wisconsin, revealed that preference for preventive policies is mediated by an aspect of individuals' thinking process: complexity. Support for punitive policies is, conversely, a result of an affective process: fear. Both processes originate from particular patterns of media use. Use of complex media content is related to more-complex thinking about crime, whereas exposure and attention to the simple, infotainment format of various reality-based pseudo-news, talk, and news-magazine shows is related to lower levels of complexity. Crime- and violence-ridden television local news use is exclusively related to increased fear of crime. This study implies that media may affect individual judgments by the structure of their presentation in addition to their content.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 45 citations exist upstream.

References

1974Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases 1991Is Anyone Responsible?2016Human Information Processing 1994Fear control and danger control: A test of the extended parallel process model (EPPM)1966Path Analysis: Sociological Examples 1980Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting 1992Common Knowledge 1997Switching Trains of Thought

Cited by

2012Media Consumption, Perceptions of Crime Risk and Fear of Crime: Examining Race/Ethnic Differences 2012Does Watching the News Affect Fear of Terrorism? The Importance of Media Exposure on Terrorism Fear 2018Examining the Relationship Between Media Consumption, Fear of Crime, and Support for Controversial Criminal Justice Policies Using a Nationally Representative Sample 2013Notes on a (sex crime) scandal: The impact of media coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church on public opinion 2018Investigating the Influence of Social Media Consumption on Punitive Attitudes Among a Sample of U.S. University Students

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.