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Cultivating Support for Punitive Criminal Justice Policies: News Sectors and the Moderating Effects of Audience Characteristics

Abstract:This study investigates whether exposure to various news sectors (local television, network television, cable television, radio, daily print newspapers, and Internet) is associated with audience members' criminal justice policy preferences, and how these relationships are moderated by audience members' socio-demographic characteristics. I propose that the relationship between news exposure and punitiveness is mediated by audience members' instrumental concerns (fear of crime and previous victimization) and expressive concerns (belief in the importance of traditional ties, feelings of racial resentment, and pessimism about the national economy). I further suggest that the relationship between news exposure and punitiveness is moderated by audience members' socio-demographic characteristics (race/ethnicity, local crime rate, and political ideology). Finally, I contend that individual news sectors vary in their attention to crime and their rhetorical framing, and thus have differing relationships with punitiveness. Results of a nationally representative survey suggest that news exposure cultivates punitiveness among whites, but not among blacks or Hispanics. Among whites, local news viewership has a significant positive relationship with punitiveness, particularly among individuals living in low-crime areas. Cable television, radio, print newspaper, and Internet news exposure have significant relationships with punitiveness, the direction of which hinges on audience members' partisanship. I discuss the results in the context of the social construction of reality, highlighting the interplay between experienced and vicarious sources of knowledge, and in terms of selective exposure, emphasizing that audience members' news outlet choices have profound implications for their worldviews.