Die Entwicklung der Gewalt- und Kriminalitätsberichterstattung im lokalen Raum

A long-term investigation of crime coverage in the local columns of two national newspapers (〉Süddeutsche Zeitung〈 and 〉Frankfurter Rundschau〈) from 1949 to 1999 (short news items only) examined whether the threshold of crime reporting was raised over the years. Theories about the gap between reality and media reality make up the theoretical background. So far, research has hardly tackled the question of whether distortions in media reality are stable over time or subject to change. The results show that local coverage draws a distorted picture of crime in general. Bias increased over the years, and it was not based on the over-representation of violent and heavy crime, but rather on the under-representation of light and nonviolent crime, particularly theft, forgery and finance-related crime. Starting in the 1970s, these cases have only rarely passed the selection threshold, which is likely so because of their nonviolent character.